


Unfailing Love

by knottedenergy



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, hun - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, China, F/M, Fighter Pilots, Interracial Relationship, Pacific, Pearl Harbor - Freeform, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2017-12-07 21:26:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 52,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knottedenergy/pseuds/knottedenergy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta, a navigator aboard a B-29 bomber during World War II, is the only survivor when his plane crashes behind enemy lines. Being a navigator he knows exactly where he is. What he doesn’t know is that Katniss, the girl who finds him in the middle of her family’s field after the plane crash, is going to change his life forever. Unique setting; Interesting take on Peeta’s family; M rating is primarily for violence (this is a war story) and psychological intensity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fire

[AN: This is an "Everlark" AU story set during World War II. I have tried to make it as authentic as such a thing can be. I hope you like it. I have about four chapters written so far, and the writing is going well. Thanks for reading.]

**Chapter 1: "Fire"**

Aboard B-29 Bomber (June, 1944)

The plane bumps around so much that I drop the compass. It lands with a clang under my seat and begins bouncing on the metal floor. After a minute or two I reclaim it by blindly reaching one hand under the sharp metal legs of the seat until my fingers touch it. A navigator's work is never done. Record this, record that. Check this map. Watch this flight path. Make sure we're on course. Check for any anomalies. What's the weather like? I'm good at it all because I'm meticulous by nature.

My eyes squeeze shut for protection from the bright sunlight that's streaming through my station's window. But as my eyes adjust to the sun I see that the propeller on one of the engines has stopped moving. My heart skips a beat or two before I see flames begin to lap at the edges of the engine from within its core.

"Engine fire," I whisper under my breath. Then I scream it.

"Engine fire! Engine Fire!"

I drop my compass and push my maps off my desk. Then I pick up the first heavy instrument on my desk that I can get my hand on and bang it against the metal wall as hard as I can, still yelling about the fire.

Record this, record that. Where's the fire? What's our altitude? Much too high for this, that's what our altitude is!

B-29's have not been in service that long, but my first impressions of them were all related to their tremendous size. The wings span 141 feet, and there are two engines on each wing. But at the moment the capacity of the fuel tanks comes hurling to the forefront of my mind. Thousands of gallons of fuel slosh around in the wing tanks alone. With open flames visible outside my window all I can think of is how that fuel threatens to explode at any moment.

"John!" I shout to the pilot. I can see his hands fumbling with the controls. He knows what's happening, and he'll try to set us down safely. Everything will be fine.

Suddenly, the propeller of the damaged engine snaps off and hits the side of the plane with a clatter. Flames shoot out from behind the wing. I push my whole body against the cold wall, as far from the window as I can get, as if that will save me. Denying the outcome of this flight any longer seems pointless. I grasp for anything solid to brace myself.

The plane pitches hard and begins the rapid descent that I knew to be inevitable. I'm still screaming about the fire every few seconds, hoping any other crew members who are not aware of the fire already can hear me over the noise of the trembling metal plates of the plane. But if they are also calling out to me or each other, I can't hear any of them.

Surely they all know by now.

I see the boots of the gunner stationed above me as he slides down to my level of the plane, his eyes wide with fear. The second engine on our side of the plane suddenly erupts into flame. The plane drops again, knocking me from my feet and onto the metal floor but not pulling me from the metal bar I'm holding.

No hope. We'll be a fireball in moments. I only hope we won't feel much.

I look back to the cockpit. John's still trying to regain control. He turns his head. He's moving his mouth, but I can't hear him. The gunner is pulling on my arm and starting to shimmy down to the opening of the pressurized tube that connects the front and back sections of our plane. Beside it is the unpressurized cargo area where the bombs are stored.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see John waving his hands at me, motioning for me to go with the gunner. John's a great pilot, highly dedicated. He won't bail out with any of us still onboard. But I'm afraid his devotion will only get him killed this time. If anyone gets out of this bomber alive, it's going to be by jumping. The gunner pulls my arm, and I follow him into the tube.

The next few moments run together. One second I'm on the plane, hoping it doesn't explode before we reach an altitude low enough for bailing out safely. The air's full of smoke, making knowing when to jump almost impossible. The next moment, I'm pulling my chute and sucking in a deep breath for what feels like the first time since I saw the flames lapping around the edges of the first damaged engine. My parachute catches the wind and violently pulls me back. My eyes dart from one section of sky to another, but I don't see a single other parachute even as the plane and I grow further apart and the smoke clears.

The inferno that is our plane grows larger with every second. Even though I'm well clear of the flames, my skin burns, making me writhe with pain as I hang from the parachute straps. I make noises like blowing out a candle and try to pull my legs upward without even thinking about how stupid that is. And even though I try not to look at the horror unfolding as the plane plummets into the open field below me, I hear it.

No parachutes. I'm the only one. How can I be the only one?

The very air shakes as the huge plane explodes where it burns on the ground. The fuel that spills into the water ignites, making the water glow unnaturally with flames. The fire ball rivals anything I've seen in more than two years as an airman. Debris and dark gray smoke shoot straight up into the sky several times as explosions continue to rip through the debris covered field. I twist my fingers around my parachute straps nervously as I realize the fire also serves as my entire crew's funeral pyre. They're gone. All of them. I'm alone. I'm the navigator, and I know for certain that we were much too far away to be picked up on radar or visualized by anybody who could readily help me.

My feet dangle over the shallow clear water of the rice paddy field I'm floating toward. I imagine the water splashing onto my boots and soaking through my uniform. What will I do after that? I know exactly where I am and could point it out on a map, but this is such a remote area. What will I do when I reach the ground? This part of rural China is controlled by the Japanese. Although Japan has not been able to conquer all of China they have captured and occupied much of the eastern side of the country. I'm nowhere near any allied base. Our missions are very long-range and bring us into enemy controlled territory often. My closest realistic help is probably hundreds of miles from here.

I continue to drift toward the ground, and when my feet finally touch the earth I hear a sickening crack and immediately fall into the shallow water. The parachute spreads out behind me, then on top of me. I flail my arms to push it off of my face before gathering it into my arms.

/

I wake with a searing pain shooting through my thigh. It hurt when I first fell, but not like this. I suspect I've been unconscious instead of asleep. My head throbs, and I seem to remember it hitting something metal during the fire on the plane. A metal bar, perhaps? My uniform snagged on something as well. I don't remember details. All the details blur, and perhaps they should if I'm to survive this.

My fingers dig into the mud and intermingle with the tangled roots of the water plants. Bending the leg that's not injured at the knee I try to get up from the water, but my head spins. I quickly drop back down. Muddy water splashes my face, and I instinctually pull my head up again and rip a few water plants out of the mud in response. The sudden movement sends my head spinning for a second time, and I gasp.

I'm not drowning. It's just a little water. I'm okay. Maybe not okay. But I'm not drowning.

That's when I see her. She looks like a shadow against the gray smoke billowing through the sky above us. Her shirt appears to be a dusty blue color, making her even harder to see. Her dark, piercing eyes stare at me with what I think is curiosity. Her hair is pinned back, but a few strands fall onto her forehead as she leans over me. Her eyes sit somewhat close to either side of the bridge of her small nose, which makes her look even more mysterious…and, well, beautiful. Though injured and frightened I can still appreciate a pretty face.

Just after my eyes meet hers she kneels and holds her hand briefly over my forehead before dropping it into the tangled curls of my hair. They must be matted together because as she begins pulling her fingers apart to free them from one another I feel a gentle pull on my scalp. Then she runs her fingers through easily. It feels oddly intimate because her touch is slow, tender, and methodical. And honestly, it's been a long time since any woman has so much as brushed against me much less purposely touched me. But I get the impression she's just curious. In rural China, and sometimes even in large cities, most people have never met a person with blonde hair. This isn't a sensual touch, at least not for her.

I wonder silently, when she tires of playing with my hair, will she finish me off? I mean, will she kill me? Or bring her father, husband, or brother back to kill me? Perhaps turn me over to authorities for money? I shudder.

The girl must feel it. She stills her hand on my forehead, and miraculously my head stops spinning. I exhale slowly. But something catches in my throat. Perhaps it is the smoke. I raise my head and cough violently, displacing her hand and causing her to lean away. Each cough is accompanied by a stabbing pain in my head, and I finally moan in frustration when the coughs subside. The girl watches, and she quickly places her hand in its former position on my forehead when I become still.

As the smoke clears I can see her other hand is streaked with blood as well as water, and it trembles against my side when she lays it on my shoulder. An earsplitting boom causes her to jerk her hands away from me. The plane. The fuel tanks. On fire. Everything ablaze, I'm sure. I wonder how many explosions there will be before the fire burns itself out in the shallow water of the rice paddy.

Suddenly, I feel the water splashing around me. The girl stands. As her clothes drip water and mud onto my face and arm I notice the fresh red blood stains on her sleeve. They must be my blood, but I don't know where I'm bleeding. Tiny lines form between the woman's thin eyebrows, as if she doesn't really want to do what she's thinking of doing. Then she turns and takes off running without a sound other than the splashing of her feet through the water.

I call to her, "Wait! Wait! Stop!" She doesn't stop or turn around to look at me.

In the minutes that follow I start to wonder if I actually saw or felt anyone at all. Maybe I simply wanted to believe that I did. Night begins to fall, and the air quickly chills. Heartsick, I start to think of John and my other crewmates. As the night wears on I try to keep myself from thinking about dying. I know too much about how people die. The war has taught me plenty, but my grandfather being a doctor made me more aware of death than the average young man even before the war. He wanted me to follow in his footsteps and be a doctor also, but I'd known for a long time that I didn't have the stomach for it. I never told him so, and now I probably never would. There were plenty of ways for a person's body to shut down out here in this rice paddy after a plane crash. Exposure, dehydration, internal bleeding and infection come to mind as reasons that I might be leaving this world shortly. I sigh and then feel warm tears run down my cheeks. Nobody minds, after all. Nobody's here.

Ultimately, focusing on dying when you're still alive makes no sense. So Instead I try to think about my family and friends. Silly things like shopping trips with my mother come to mind. She likes to cook and made the most of what money we had to make good meals for us. I used to watch her carefully count out the change for the grocer from her little coin purse. She never wasted a penny.

I can't bring myself to think about Delly. We could have gotten married before I left. Delly wanted that. We could have run away together for at least a little while. Delly and I both thought at the time that surely a brief amount of time together would be better than none at all, but our parents rightly warned us against that kind of thinking. We knew the reasons even if our parents wouldn't give voice to all of them. Delly would have a more difficult time losing me if we deepened our relationship and I subsequently became a casualty of the war. There would also have been the possibility of leaving Delly not only a very young widow but a mother to a fatherless child as well. My child. New tears suddenly roll down both of my cheeks.

"It would be better to wait until you get back home, son," my Dad had said gently. "Just until you're back home."

Thinking about my father is too much for me because it reminds me that I'll never be a father if I die in the middle of this rice paddy. But I do love my father. So much of who I am is wrapped up in who he is. He'll be proud of me, I think. I hope. All of these sad thoughts have to stop, though. They must.

I begin to whisper anxious versions of songs I learned as a child standing between my grandparents in church. I'd usually share a hymnal with my grandmother as I watched my father look over his sermon notes one last time. On the last chorus my father would stand before his congregation. My grandmother would give me a piece of paper sometimes and let me draw. Dad's voice, sounding full of emotion and strength, would fill the sanctuary while I drew pictures of my pet rabbits, our house, the church, and my brothers. That was my world back then, a relatively simple one.

The thought of not seeing my family again creeps into my mind, plunging me into despair once more. As a lump rises in my throat I find myself desperate. I whisper the words of a song I'd been remembering singing with my grandmother in church, but this time the phrases are broken and punctuated with tears. I suppose God understands.

_"Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,_

_darkness be over me, my rest a stone;_

_yet in my dreams I'd be_

_nearer, my God, to thee…_

_There let the way appear, steps unto heaven;_

_all that thou sendest me, in mercy given;_

_angels to beckon me_

_nearer my God to thee…"_

I stop and start to cry in earnest. "I'm not ready. Please. Please. I'm just not ready. Not yet."

My prayer becomes a silent one as I drift off into what I hope is only sleep.

/

_Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1932 (age 9)_

_"That's right, Peter. Just like that," Grandmother tells me while we paint in the garden. "She lets go of my hand and lets me try to paint the character on my own._

_"Why do you like to write Chinese so much?" I ask her as she puts her paintbrush to paper again._

_"I like to paint. I like art. Just like you do. The Chinese have the prettiest writing in the whole world, don't you think? It's art," Grandmother says. Her Chinese characters look so much better than mine. Chinese is written in "characters," which are not that much like the "letters" in English. My teacher insists on good cursive handwriting on our papers at school now that we are in third grade, but cursive is easy compared to Chinese characters. I don't understand how Grandmother can make hers so neat. She says Chinese people can make them look even better and that she's still learning._

_"Well, I haven't seen much other writing except ours and theirs," I tell her._

_Grandmother smiles. "I have, and Chinese is the most beautiful I've seen."_

_I hear the gentle sound of her paintbrush sweeping across the paper while I try to keep my own paintbrush steady._

_"Why do you and Grandfather want me to learn Chinese?" I ask her. It's not that I mind learning, but none of my friends are learning Chinese or any other language._

_"Oh, that's a good question, Peter. First of all, you're a smart boy. It's good for you to challenge yourself. Chinese is a hard language to learn. For English speakers, it's kind of like learning to do math."_

_"Yes, it is kind of like that," I agree with a smile. "I like math."_

_Grandmother laughs a little._

_"And many more people in this world speak Chinese than speak English. Most people don't know that. And someday your Grandfather and I might get to go back to China. You might want to go with us, or you might go to China on your own someday," she explains. "It's a land close to our family's heart."_

_"Grandmother, why'd you leave China?" I ask._

_Grandmother sighs. I knew she would be upset and shouldn't have asked the question at all. Still, I was curious._

_"There were many reasons. Nobody has much money right now, Peter. The church couldn't afford to keep us working in China. They even had to close the hospital we helped to start, but I still hope that someday we will be able to go back."_

_She paused for just a moment._

_"There were some other reasons as well, Peter, but I don't think you'll understand those until you are a little older."_

/

The next time I wake up I'm not praying, I'm screaming. Someone is touching my injured thigh, but the touch feels like I'm being stabbed. My thoughts jumble together just like they did on the plane during the fire, but the next words I hear bring all my priorities back into focus.

"We should kill him and burn his body. He'll never live," I hear a voice say in Chinese. My eyes, which had previously been squeezed shut, fly open. The girl hovering over me seems about my age. I squint. She looks strangely familiar. Could she be the girl who visited me before? What she was saying didn't match the tenderness I'd felt before.

"Kill him? You don't even know who he is or why he's here," a younger Chinese girl answers. She's the one touching my leg, and I want to push her away. Since she's arguing against killing me at the moment, I manage to restrain myself.

"You know if they find him here they'll punish us, probably kill us," the older girls points out, her voice as melodic as her words are hateful. Then again, she might be right. In terms of their own safety, killing me might be their best option. Morality is another matter.

As if reading my mind the younger girl interrupts. "Killing him is not right."

"Maybe I don't mean kill him then. It would be better if he died and we burned his body. We don't have to kill him," the older girl points out.

"He's from that plane. Where do you think that plane was going?" The younger girl asks as if she knows the answer and expects the older girl to know it also.

"Japan," the older girl whispers, then pauses. "Or somewhere near Japan."

"And what do you think that big plane was going to do in Japan?" the younger girl asks.

The older girl looks down, thoughtful. She wrings her hands.

"Bombs," I choke out in Chinese. "Bring bombs." At least that's what I hope I'm saying. I would say "Bomb the Japanese munitions factories," but I didn't know how. I can understand much more Chinese than I can speak. My C.O. back in our base in India would probably say I shouldn't say anything, but these girls might be my only chance at survival. Plus, the way the older one said "Japan" makes me sure she views the Japanese as the enemy.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Do these girls believe that as well?

The younger of the two leans back and away from me, her jaw having dropped down in astonishment when I spoke. The older one stares, her eyes wide with wonder. They're no doubt shocked that a blonde man like me could speak a word of Chinese. I suppose if a Chinese person literally dropped out of the sky and started speaking English back in Pittsburgh I'd do the same. Then again, maybe I accidently said something offensive.

The younger girl quickly regains her composure and resumes her arguments against killing me. "How can you kill a man who flew a plane over your home to bomb China's enemy and still say you are loyal to China?" she asks indignantly. I'm relieved that I've judged their loyalties accurately.

"How does he know how to speak any Chinese? Who is he?" the older one asks in response. She eyes me suspiciously and starts examining my parachute and uniform with her deft fingers. I notice the straps of the parachute have been cut off of my shoulders unevenly, and my bomber jacket lies across my chest. I wonder if they've put it there to keep be warm or simply to look at it.

I attempt to move my leg away from the younger girl because she keeps touching it, but moving is definitely the wrong decision. I fist the few water plants I haven't already pulled from the mud and fight the urge to scream again. My hands continue to clench every time my heart-beat sends another painful throbbing sensation through me. I feel sick and turn my head to the side where the older girl is kneeling. Our eyes meet again, and hers all but glisten. But I turn my head further still because I don't want to look at her as I get sick, if I do. Connecting with these girls could save me, but a haze of pain, nausea, and fear make concentration difficult at best. Once the waves of physical misery dissipate a bit I start with an additional strategy.

"If you help me, the US government will…" I begin in broken Chinese while gesturing my hand to the fabric sign sewn onto the back of my bomber jacket that explains that I'm a US airman and that my government will offer protection to anyone who returns me safely. Every airman wears the same message on his jacket, and it's written in multiple languages, including Chinese.

"We aren't telling anybody about him!" the older girl states firmly to the younger one. She doesn't address me directly or even look at me again.

The younger girl nods. She does look at me, her eyes softening. She starts to reach her hand out, then stops when the older one tells her "no."

Both girls rise to their feet and start to walk away. I call to them in both English and Chinese, but they ignore me.

I lay still in the shallow water, trembling and hoping they'll come back.

[AN: Yes! If you are wondering - the "older girl" is Katniss, and the "younger girl" is Prim.]

Visit or follow me on Tumblr http://knottedenergy.tumblr.com/

[Special thanks to: my awesome beta - Katnissinme, my eternally patient "plot advisor" – Loueze, and the amazingly talented Ro Nordmann for the cover art for this story which can be seen at http://knottedenergy.tumblr.com/]


	2. Shelter

[AN: Hello all! Thanks for reading! Our Chinese characters have been given Chinese names that are hopefully easy to remember: Katniss=Cai (first sound is the same same); Gale=Gao (first letter is the same); Min=Prim (sounds similar). To be authentic I just couldn't make Katniss' "real" name as a Chinese person "Katniss" - you'll see that "Katniss" as a name comes into the story later, though.]

The girls who found me want to survive, just as I do, I tell myself.

I respect their decision in my stronger moments. In my weaker ones I fight feeling frustrated with them for not at least trying to reduce my misery. They could have gotten me out of this water, away from the sun, and safe from predators that might attack me. Would that really have been so much to ask? Then I remind myself of how afraid they must be. This is war. Civilians can suffer as much as soldiers, occasionally even more.

Earlier in the war the US bombed Tokyo. The airmen who executed the small raid could only fly so far from Japan before depleting their fuel supplies, leaving many of them trapped in occupied China. Chinese civilians helped most of the airmen escape into allied territory. Outraged by the attack on their homeland and the Chinese civilians' attempts to protect the Americans responsible, the Japanese military punished several provinces of China. Hundreds of Thousands of Chinese people were killed, and whole villages were burned over the escape of around 60 US airmen. Tragically, many of the people punished probably didn't even know what made the Japanese so angry. That's the kind of utter brutality happening during this war. These girls have every reason to be afraid.

Perhaps it doesn't matter what these girls do or don't do, I tell myself. I'm slowly bleeding to death anyway. 

My eyes start to close. I stare at the sky, willing myself to stay awake and opening my eyes as widely as I can. They sting when the dust in the air hits them, but no tears form. My body doesn't have enough fluid left to spare for tears. A wave of panic slowly rises. I'm afraid if my eyes close then they'll never open again, but I know that people can die with their eyes open, too. Trying to cope with the onslaught of my fears exhausts me. My eyelids flutter closed. Darkness. The panic rises again, slower this time. My heart still speeds up, but the beating feels weaker in my chest.

I find myself jealous of wounded soldiers who make it to hospitals and die in the fog of pain medications, men I once pitied. A few might even have their hands held by caring nurses to ease them on their way. Not me. This water will be all that holds me while I pass out of this world. I do eventually sleep a little, but I'm plagued by nightmares of the fire on the plane. Fortunately, not all of my dreams are terrible. Some are nostalgic and bittersweet. I miss home so much. I wish I could see it once more.

I always knew this could happen to me, of course. From the moment I knew for certain that my country would be drawn into the war, I knew.

/

December 7th, 1941 (age 18) 

The letters on the page start to blur together as my eyes close. Two more exams and I get to go home for Christmas. I force my eyes open and shake my head. Two more exams. 

"Hey, Pete!" my roommate says as he nudges my shoulder with his hand. "Didn't that preacher father of yours ever teach you that Sunday is the day of rest?" 

"Sunday was definitely the day of work for him, trust me," I joke sleepily. "Besides I was resting, sort of."

"Come downstairs and listen to the game," he suggests. "I want to see how the Dodgers are doing, and you need to get out of this stuffy room. That radiator's way too hot." 

I'm about to tell him I'd rather take a nap, a nap that's probably only being encouraged by the overly hot radiator, when I hear running in the hall outside our room. One of our dorm mates comes to a sudden halt right outside our room, his shoes actually squeaking from the fast turn he makes to face us.

"Peter, what's Pearl Harbor?" he asks. 

"A naval base," I tell him. "Why?" 

"It's our naval base?" he asks.

"Yeah, it's in Hawaii. Why?" 

There's yelling in the hallway, and our nervous looking dorm mate looks away toward the source of the noise.

"The Japanese just attacked it," he says quietly and urgently. "They just said so on the radio." He pauses for a moment before asking me to clarify again, "So it's definitely one of our naval bases?" 

"Yes, yes," I stammer, still hoping he's joking about the whole thing. Practical jokes are pretty common around here, and they know I've been keeping up with the news closely and am into geography. It's just the kind of trick someone would pull on me.

"Where's Manila?" he asks his voice uneven.

"The Philippines," I answer.

"They said something about Manila, too," he continues. He looks white as a sheet, and I realize he can't be joking. His reactions are much too real.

"Come on," I say, waving them out of the room. "I wanna' hear this myself."

Even before we get to the common room I know there's no joke. I feel a strange sense of doom. The common room's full of boys. Somebody's already pushed a window up so a couple of boys standing outside in the cold can listen to the radio broadcast along with the rest of us. There's a man on the radio saying that he's in Honolulu. He says there are Japanese planes flying around everywhere. 

"What do you think is going to happen now?" my roommate asks.

Why people ask me these things, I don't know. I answer him, though. Maybe that's why they ask.

"I think we won't be able to avoid the war anymore," I tell him sadly. "The waiting's over. Now we know."

/ 

Christmas Eve 1941 (age 18)

The whole house smells like Mother's cooking, and I don't see how anybody could be so argumentative when we're about to eat all that good food. Besides, we might not be spending Christmas together again for a while. My brother finds a way to ruin it, though.

"So you get through three and a half years at this damn prep school and you're going to drop out a semester before graduation? Why?" My brother demands an explanation, a good one.

"I'm not the only one, and you know why," I tell him. "What I've already done will still matter, and after the war I'll be given credit somehow. I'm sure of it. My school's not going to punish me for serving my country," I tell him.

"Oh, they might. I wouldn't put it past them. Snobs."

"Stop it," I tell him.

"So you're just going to volunteer?" he asks. "Why don't you just wait a little longer? See what happens."

"Is that what you're going to do?" I ask him.

"Maybe," he tells me.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other nervously. 

"Look, you have to let me do what I know is right. For me. I'm not saying that what I do is right for you. This is one of those things that is each person's individual decision to make."

"Really? What about Delly? Have you thought about her?"

I hesitate. Dad steps in the room and frowns at me and then my brother.

"Change the subject," he orders. 

My brother crosses his arms defiantly. "There's not much else anybody is talking about, Dad."

"I mean it. You're upsetting your mother. Either change the subject or take it outside," my father insists.

/

I'm still among the living and struggling to stay that way when the sun rises. At first I'm sure I'm hallucinating when I see the younger of the girls who found me yesterday approach me. She's carrying some kind of farm tool that looks remarkably like a shovel.

They really are going to kill me.

For the first time I have no reaction at all to the thought of dying. I only wonder how they will hasten the end of my life.

They don't hate me. They'll be merciful about it, won't they?

The girl drops the shovel near my parachute and kneels down beside me. She reaches her small hand out toward my thigh, and I tense immediately.

Please don't touch me. Just don't. 

She must sense my silent hopes because she stops and simply looks at my leg for a long moment rather than touching it.

"It doesn't look worse," she says slowly.

Resigned, I close my eyes. Who cares if my leg looks worse or not?

"What's your name?" the girl asks.

I look up at her, surprised. Why would she want to know my name?

"Peter," I whisper through my chapped lips.

"Pee-ta," she repeats.

Close enough. I'm probably mispronouncing half of the Chinese words I say. I'm not going to correct how this girl says my name.

"We are going to hide you, Pee-ta," she tells me.

A warm feeling slowly rises in my chest and into my throat as relief floods me.

"Thank you," I manage to whisper. "Thank you so much," I say again as I close my eyes for just a moment.

"Where?" I ask.

She gestures toward a rocky ridge at the other end of the field.

"I can't walk," I tell her honestly.

"More are coming," she tells me.

I sigh worriedly. Every person who knows I survived the plane crash increases the chances that I'll be killed or captured, but the possibility of shelter is worth the risk.

"What's your name?" I ask her. She smiles shyly and looks down at the water.

"Min," she answers.

/

The idea of getting out of this water sounds like heaven to me, but I wonder what kind of damage the water might have done to my skin. I'm worried about my injured leg too. I can wiggle my toes and feel the water against my skin, but the water feels different than it does against my other leg. There's a strange numb sensation in my injured leg even though there is pain.

The sun is rising higher into the sky, and I suspect an hour or so has passed when I ask Min, "Who is coming?"

"My sister and Gao," she answers.

Will they want to kill me or give me to the enemy? I wonder.

"Gao is a friend. You met my sister, Cai, yesterday. She doesn't think letting you die is the best anymore. I have the good fortune of being like my mother. You have the good fortune that my mother is a healer. She will tell us what to do for your leg," Min says with what sounds like an edge of hope.

Min stands up and motions in the direction of two approaching figures. A fog has moved in, but I can see that one is her sister, Cai. The other is a man as tall as me, perhaps taller. They whisper to each other quietly, and I can only catch a few phrases.

"It's happened before…don't trust…remember what happened to my father."

The man is doing most of the talking. Cai is carrying several fairly straight sticks. She holds two of them out to the man. He measures them against each other and then breaks off the end of one stick so that it is the same length as the other. Then the man gives the two sticks to Min before staring at me ominously. I find myself leaning away from him.

Min places one of her hands on my upper thigh and the other one at the knee of my injured leg. I manage to prop myself on my elbows, which sink into the mud. The man shakes his head and turns away. I don't understand all of what Min says, probably because I'm focusing on the fact that she's probably about to move my leg.

"Keep it still…walk with us…"

For the first time I notice that Min is holding a few pieces of ragged cloth. They look gray and dirty. Min motions to Cai who promptly kneels down with her. Then Min puts a hand on either side of my thigh, moving the skin just slightly. She presses her hands into the swollen skin, and I gasp as pain shoots through me, taking my breath away. So much for my leg feeling numb. She presses harder, and my teeth bite hard into the inside of my lower lip until I taste blood and my vision blurs into a white haze. Ashamed, I look up at the clouds in the sky. Looking weak in front of this other man who doesn't appear to like the girls helping me can't be good.

"Broken," Min declares unceremoniously. I glance at my leg. Yes, that makes sense. I remember a cracking sound. Cai moves my uninjured leg away from the other one by pulling against the knee, and I finally see where the blood has been coming from. There's a deep gash on the broken leg just above the knee. My uniform is ripped over the cut. Suddenly I recall a sharp piece of metal from the plane cutting into my leg.

I consider how dirty the cut looks. Back home my grandfather would first be horrified by the cut, then adjust his glasses, and finally proceed to clean the cut thoroughly before stitching it closed. But I'm not at home. I have no idea what we can do for this cut. It looks terrible. The skin surrounding the cut is puffy and red. Cai puts her hand just below my knee and lifts my leg up a little. The pain is still awful, but the look on her face distracts me. She grimaces and has to turn away. I narrow my eyes. She seems so strong yet…not strong. I wonder if she could have killed me even if she had decided that was her best option. Cai takes some of the strips of fabric from Min and gently ties them around the gash on my leg. Her hands have to touch my leg in the process. The movements are hesitant, gentle, warm, and completely different from Min's confident ones. Our eyes meet as she finishes tying the fabric together. Her lower lip quivers, and I don't know what to make of that. This time I'm the one who looks away.

Min proceeds to lay one of the sticks against the outside of my injured leg and the other against the inside. Then Cai holds the sticks in place while Min tightly ties the sticks together so that they splint my leg. Min leans back, looking satisfied with their work.

The man turns around and says something I don't understand. Then he reaches for my arm and pulls it up while staring fiercely into my eyes. I get the distinct impression that he doesn't think much of me, so I glance nervously from Cai to Min and back to Cai.

Min waves her arms and tells him to stop. "He can't walk," she tells the man.

The man lets go of my arm abruptly, and my shoulders drop back down. A frustrated look crosses his face. He clenches his jaw, grabs my arm again, and abruptly pulls upward. This time I know he's not going to stop no matter what Min or Cai have to say. Apparently reaching the same conclusion, Min quickly grasps my other arm and shoulder, pushing me up with her small body's weight. Cai's feet slosh through the water of the rice paddy as she rushes to get behind me. She pushes her hands against my back to help me get upright. Water and mud slip down my uniform and into the water at my feet. The splint helps with the pain tremendously. I'm surprised to be tolerating movement better, but I can barely balance on one leg even with help. We take uncoordinated steps forward, with Gao moving much too fast. But at least I'm moving.

I stumble along between Min and the man they call Gao until we finally reach the edge of the rocky ridge. With my head tucked down I'm increasingly struggling, and Min notices.

"Stop now, Gao. Let him rest."

Gao ignores her, and tries to continue on until Min stops moving completely, protesting his lack of capitulation. Min appears to be the expert on my physical condition and what's best for me at present. At least Min thinks she is. Gao apparently disagrees. My shoulder blades are pulled apart briefly as Gao moves forward and Min refuses to follow. Then Gao sighs and starts to let go of my shoulder. Min slows his departure, by scolding him a little. It's clear they are close.

Cai lags behind, carrying the shovel. I look back at her. Her skin tone is darker and she is taller than Min. She looks more like Gao. Min said he was a friend, but they could be brother and sister. Maybe they are cousins. The way she listens and watches reminds me of that rare quality of quiet intelligence that I find so intriguing in certain people. I hope she'll talk more because I bet she's interesting, and she distracts me from my dire predicament. Being fascinated by someone who considered letting me die less than twenty-four hours ago strikes me as odd, but that's exactly what's happening.

Gao takes several steps forward and turns his head from side to side, surveying the rice paddy. I follow his gaze as he does. Smoke still rises from the smoldering remains of the B-29 and the fuel it carried. Cai walks up beside him, leaving me alone with Min sitting on the ground.

"Who is Gao?" I ask. "Your brother?"

An amused expression crosses Min's face.

I start to feel dizzy again and decide to lean back on my elbows.

"Oh, no," Min says, "he was to be my brother-in-law, but there have been some problems."

[Please review: I'm wondering what you all think!]


	3. Last Hope

Peeta's POV

Gao throws his hand out toward the remains of the plane and angrily spouts off about the dangers of anyone finding me on the farm. As much as I want Cai, Gao and Min to help me survive, I know Gao is right. My presence puts all of them in terrible danger. I drop my head sadly. Fortunately, this field appears rather remote. No structures of any kind dot the horizon, and I haven't even seen a place where Cai's family might live.

Deciding the only matter I have any control over is minimizing the danger, I tell Min I'm ready to try and walk again. By getting out of sight I hope to make us all a little safer. I also push my hand forward to try to demonstrate what I mean to say just in case I haven't said it correctly. It's a technique I'm finding useful to make myself understood.

Gao looks annoyed at his monologue being interrupted but does approach me again. Hauling me up roughly by my arm, he maneuvers himself to support my weakest side while Cai simultaneously takes over Min's former role of supporting my other shoulder. She falters just a little, and my broken leg touches the ground abruptly as I try to take some of the pressure off of her body. I gasp, and her dark eyes mesmerize me for just a moment when she looks over to figure out what's happening. Her dark, straight hair brushes against my cheek as she lowers her gaze once more. Gao suddenly pulls me forward, and slowly we begin our awkward, shuffling walk.

Min runs ahead, and I see her approach what looks like a small outcrop of rocks in the otherwise flat landscape. She uses the shovel to push aside a few rocks, revealing the mouth of a small cave. I look to Cai curiously, wondering if my long wait in the field alone had something to do with preparing this hiding place. Cai's still looking down. I can feel the muscles of her shoulder, neck, and arms straining under my weight as I tire. I try to avoid leaning any more of my weight on her than is necessary. She's small, but strong.

The last of my energy reserves finally fades completely, and I struggle to keep my broken leg off the ground for the last few yards of the journey to the cave. I can feel myself beginning to lose my balance when Cai puts her tired arm around my waist to try and steady me. My teeth clench as I try to push myself to make it just a little bit further. With no warning, Gao suddenly releases the arm that he'd been supporting, letting me go. Since I was already preparing to lower myself to the ground I don't fall. I see Cai look up and glare at Gao while she kneels to assist in lowering me down to the ground as gently as she can without Gao's help. She thanks Gao for his assistance despite his sudden abandonment just before he indignantly turns away.

Even I know Gao's actions are impolite at best. I sense an undercurrent and want to ask if everything is all right, but that's not my business and would probably make Gao more irate. The intricacies of an interpersonal disagreement would likely escape me if somebody explained them to me in Chinese anyway.

Cai (Katniss') POV

Gao continues to infuriate me constantly, and I wonder if he's doing so on purpose. He appears angry with me but he has no right to be. He's the one breaking our engagement even though I've been promised to him since we were too young to understand what that even meant. He can pretend he is angry with me for assisting a foreigner, but that isn't our greatest disagreement.

I remember the first time I saw Gao, his serious demeanor obvious even at the age of ten. He was supposed to be the answer to my family's dilemma, our hope, and my future. His gangly arms and legs didn't convince me that he could be so important. In fact, I remained stronger than him and of more use on the farm for several more years. He did possess one obvious quality that I did not, however. He was male.

Our fathers had been great friends before and after they had families. As the years went by my father became increasingly distressed that our family had no male children, so Gao's father eventually promised Gao to be our family's male heir as well as my husband. My parents then raised Gao in our home for those purposes. At the time of marriage we'd simply assume our new roles in my family's home as opposed to me entering the home of his family as his wife. This tradition dates back many generations, and was appropriate in our situation. But Gao doesn't respect the old ways.

So the first day I met Gao was the day his father brought him to live in our home. I asked, "Who is that boy, and why is he here?"

My mother tried to explain his presence in a way an eight-year-old would understand, "Your father promised you to him when you were a baby. When you are old enough, he will be your husband," she said.

"Like you and father?" I asked with a nervous gasp as my eyes grew wide with fear.

She answered quickly, "Someday like father and me. For now he will be something like Min is to you."

Gao didn't act like Min, though. Being two years older and unhappily living with the family of his betrothed, his anger often boiled over.

Of course, Gao wouldn't inherit money or land from a poor family like ours, but he would be respected. He'd have a place as the leader of our family in our community, a community built around our landlord and his tenant farmers. In his own family Gao was one of several sons, but in our family he was incredibly valuable. We gave Gao the best of what little we had. He has repaid us with disloyalty, telling me that our engagement continues an old and outdated system that should be abolished. So, we remain unmarried. He considers being promised to be my husband and our male heir a humiliation of some sort, whereas I see it as an honor.

Around the time Gao and I could have married we found ourselves just inside the tree line of the most distant field gathering wood. Suddenly I felt a soft brush against my shoulder and turned around to find Gao staring at me, an odd expression on his face. Without warning he bent down and pressed his lips to mine. His strong hands wrapped around my waist. His bold actions stunned me, but I accommodated them. Gao's lips continued to move awkwardly against mine. He pulled me closer, and I felt my body tighten with apprehension as his seemed to relax.

This must be the time, I thought, the time when he sees me for what I will be to him for the rest of our lives. 

Feeling both frightened and happy I smiled against his mouth. The realization that he saw me as a woman, not the little girl he'd met years ago, settled pleasantly into my chest. Gao's hands moved to the small of my back, and I leaned in just a little, wondering what would happen next. Then all of his efforts stopped as suddenly as they'd begun.

"We could run away. You and me, we could make it. Find another life," he said.

The intensity in his voice overwhelmed me, but I knew that intensity had nothing to do with the moment we'd just shared. He rested his forehead on mine gently, but his eyes remained tightly closed as if he couldn't bear to look at me as he said what he needed to say.

"What…what are you talking about? We would starve, sentencing mother and Min to the same fate," I answered once his meaning sunk into my addled mind. "Why would you even want to run away?"

Gao took in a shuddering breath and opened his red and swollen eyes before continuing, "So we could choose who we marry. Don't you wish you could choose?"

"No," I answered angrily, knowing then that his intentions were to avoid marrying me and to deny our family children by him. He'd hinted at such intentions before but never stated such rebellion outright.

"Terrible things are happening all around us, Cai. You just don't understand. I don't want to tell you because they are so terrible. Much worse things than starvation are happening. Running is a chance we should take," Gao swallowed hard. I sighed.

"You can tell me whatever you want. I can handle it," I replied.

"No. No I won't. All I'll say is that worry about those kinds of things happening closer to us is keeping me up at night, worrying about you…all of you," Gao squeezed me with his fingers where he still held me. "I want to go to Yunnan. That's where everything is happening. People there want to make changes. They can save China, Cai. They can stop these awful things from happening to our people. If they can win, our lives will be better. We can marry who we want, and we'll be given land to farm. The land won't be a nobleman's property. They can stop all the foreigners. All of them. Even the Japanese. Do you have any idea what the Japanese are doing? Do you?" He stared at me, blinking. Then he continued, "We can make it to Yunnan…"

"I don't even know where that is. What good could we do there? If that's where everything is happening then that's exactly where we shouldn't be," I screamed. "You shame me and shame yourself! You need to stay here and marry me. We have to keep our family alive. Don't let them starve over this idea you have. If you want to protect us then stay here. Let the soldiers fight their war, and we will fight the one we must fight right here," I grabbed his forearms and pushed his hands away from me a little more forcefully than I should have.

Gao looked off to the side, quiet and enduring some obviously painful emotion that I couldn't even identify. Nor did I care to identify it. My family had invested in him by housing and feeding him for a decade, relieving his larger family of another mouth to feed. But Gao refused to take his place as my husband despite it all: tradition, honor, and friendship. With both of our fathers dead there was little we women could do to convince him otherwise.

Then the conversation turned more personal. Gao looked at me, a certain sadness edging into his expression. Then he looked down before he whispered, "Nothing stirs inside me for you, Cai." The wind rustled the leaves in the trees that formed a canopy above us. "Not even just now while I touched you." He backed away. I stood straighter, outraged and resentful of his rejection. My brow furrowed, not understanding what he thought should stir. Only anger stirred in me.

But now as I watch this strange light-haired man before me, I wonder why something strange stirs in me for him. Maybe it is only mercy. One thing is certain; you cannot choose who rouses these stirrings. If I could have avoided feeling them at all then I would have.

As I place my arm across his waist to help steady his walking a shiver runs through me. I imagine his pale hands on my waist the way Gao's once were, pulling me closer to him until we touch. A strange want and need begins to overtake my thoughts. Suddenly I fear him, not because he dropped from the sky or is what some would call a "foreign devil," but because being near him makes my body irrepressible. This must be what Gao meant by a stirring inside of a person for another. But who has Gao felt this stirring for if not me? How did he know what it was? Would he ever feel it for me? Would I ever feel it for him? Gao and I are still my family's future, if we have a future at all.

Peeta's POV

Cai crawls into the cave and then pokes her head out, gesturing for me to follow her. I have to keep my leg out straight in front of me and slide in backwards by scooting on my rear end. The process takes some time. Once I'm inside I find a flat area in the middle of the small space where they've laid out a blanket that must be for me. Tears well up in my eyes, this time for entirely different reasons. Exhausted, I lie down and turn toward the wall of the cave to let the tears fall unseen. I can hear the girls talking softly to one another as I doze off, feeling a little more secure in the relative safety of the cave.

/

I wake up to an older woman shaking my shoulders. She looks remarkably like Min, but she has wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and a stern expression not characteristic of Min at all.

"…our mother," Min explains.

The older woman searches my eyes, watching them carefully for more than a minute. She reaches her hand to my chin and pulls down, encouraging me to open my mouth. Oddly, she says nothing. At first I wonder what she's doing. Then she lifts my hands, turns them over, stares at them, and turns them over again. My clothes are still soaking wet and filthy with mud. The woman unbuttons my shirt and pulls down the sleeves to reveal my chest, arms, and shoulders. I start to realize that she's looking me over for injuries as well as taking off my wet clothes. In another minute or two she's efficiently removed the splint on my leg also and ordered her daughters to turn away.

She's brusque but seems to know what she's doing as she examines me. She points to the belt on my uniform pants. I look behind me to check that Cai and Min have obeyed their mother. Both are dutifully staring at the cave wall. The older woman nods impatiently as I turn my attention back to her. I wonder why she's in such a hurry. Is she so busy that this examination needs to be done so quickly? When I finally allow her to remove my pants and fully examine my leg my attention quickly shifts from potential embarrassment to ways to conceal my reactions to the pain that even the slightest manipulations of my leg bring. When she moves my leg more abruptly I gasp audibly.

Oh, God that hurts. I just want to go home, back to before all of this happened.

Gritting my teeth is no use. I end up cursing and crying out anyway. There's rustling and movement beside me, but I don't even look back. As if she's suddenly gotten all the information she needs, the older woman quickly covers me from just under my neck to my feet with the blanket. She leaves my injured leg mostly uncovered. Then she whispers to Cai and Min as I work to regain my composure. I watch as she tosses my filthy uniform toward the mouth of the cave.

Cai's mother turns her head awkwardly and stares at the gash on the inside of my injured leg. I look down to see what's so interesting. The reddened skin seems stretched too thin. The swelling makes the wound difficult to see from my angle, but I can see some blood. I can't feel any running down my skin, though. Maybe the bleeding has finally stopped. Cai's mother's hands feel ice cold when she touches the reddened skin above the cut.

Understanding Cai's mother is more difficult for me, especially since she's in such a rush. She mumbles to her daughters, but I only catch some a few words, "watch…give…time…water…Gao...tea…die." While she talks she re-ties the splint over my bare leg.

As she finishes I tug at the blanket so it covers all of me, even my injured leg. I watch as Min crawls out of the cave, dragging my uniform along with her. Her mother follows, still mumbling. I should have paid much more attention during my grandmother's Chinese lessons.

Cai moves closer and into my view, and I wonder if she plans to stay with me. My grandmother once told me that some people in China believe that if a person dies alone they will remain alone and sad in the afterlife.

"Some of them were afraid of a lonely ghost haunting them, Peter," she told me. "So we had to make sure the ones that were afraid of that got to stay with their sick loved ones at the hospital. Otherwise, they wouldn't come to see us."

Could Cai believe such things? Perhaps not. She left me alone last night. China is a big country with many people and beliefs.

"Min says your name is Peeta," Cai says softly, touching my forehead with cool fingers.

I turn my head to get a better view of her.

"Yes," I say.

"You are in a lot of pain," she adds, and I nod.

"I'm going to take care of you, Peeta." she replies.

Cai 's (Katniss') POV

Min told me his name. It would have been easier not to know his name. As he cried out in pain at my mother moving his leg my heart clenched in my chest. I wanted to run away, but I stayed. Abandoning him again would have been just like killing him. Yes, it would have been better for me not to know his name, but whether I knew his name or not, I couldn't have left him.

Mother says he's my responsibility since I'm the one who decided we should go back for him. To distract myself I read the message sewn into his jacket again. My father made sure I learned to read. He didn't care that others said I didn't need to know.

I was leaning over tending to plants in the middle of the field when the earsplitting boom startled me so badly that I fell to my knees. I covered my head and shook with fear. Daring to look up moments later, I saw a giant plane falling out of the sky. Thick black smoke billowed out from behind it. A man suddenly fell from the plane and through the sky. A shudder of revulsion ran through me at the thought of his body colliding with the ground.

When the plane hit the ground it exploded into a ball of fire. The ground trembled under my knees. The wave of heat from the fire caused me to crawl backwards to distance myself from the heat, and even though I had covered my ears when I removed my hands they were still ringing. Then the man caught my eye again. He hadn't fallen to the ground yet. In fact, he was suspended in the air by ropes and a gray fabric that spread out over his head. He floated down to the field like a bird, but his landing lacked a bird's grace. He tumbled into the field with a splash. I saw him move and knew he was alive.

My mother would have told me to run away even though pilots are respected. But I could tell by the markings on the plane that it did not belong to Japan. The man was looking away when I approached him, his arms still moving around in the gray fabric that surrounded him. Then he turned his head toward me. I'd met a few other people like him before, but he looked different than them. His hair was the color of wheat when the evening sun shines through it, and his eyes reminded me of a darkened blue sky. His hands looked pale as they gripped the gray fabric.

His chest rose and fell very fast, and I started to turn away and run. Just then his fear-filled eyes seemed to finally focus on mine completely, as if he hadn't even seen me before that moment. I couldn't look away from them. I leaned over him to touch his golden-colored hair, and his breathing slowed and deepened when I dropped my hand to his head. And suddenly I became afraid. I imagined that he could grab my wrist and hurt me, but the look in his eyes was so gentle that I didn't take my hand away. Instead I ran my fingers through his hair. He shivered.

His jacket fell open, and I noticed some writing inside…Chinese writing and other writing. As I grasped the jacket with my free hand the man flinched. I stopped and looked in his eyes again before I ran my fingers along the white fabric of the sign on which the character were written. It had been sewn inside the man's jacket with small uneven stitches. The sign depicted the flag of China…our China…China free of Japan. Beside it was another flag that I assumed was that of his country, but it had the same colors as the Chinese flag. My heart began to beat even faster knowing that he was indeed on our side. The written message was simple. Any literate farmer could decipher it, and my father made sure I learned to read despite the fact that I am a girl.

"I am an American airman," the message read. "My plane is destroyed. I cannot speak your language. I am an enemy of the Japanese. Please give me food and take me to the nearest allied military post. You will be rewarded."

No, I thought, we will not be rewarded. We'll be killed before we can get him to his people.

I watch the man now, just as I watched him then, just as confused, conflicted, and frightened as I had been then. But I know I can't leave him.

Peeta's POV

Cai lays her hand on my shoulder. Soon I'm drifting off to sleep again, my head rolling just a little so my cheek rests on her hand. Her hand feels cold, but comforting. I feel weaker when I wake up. Cai is there when I wake, encouraging me to sit up and boosting my shoulders up a little with her hands. I try to raise them off the cave floor. Min kneels in front of me, encouraging me to drink water from a metal cup. I only manage a few sips before dropping my swimming head back down to lean against Cai's shoulder. She feels cool and soft. I want to touch her so much, something I can't quite explain and feel rather guilty about. How can I be so captivated by this girl I met yesterday? I must have hit my head awfully hard, or maybe I just need her comfort. Something about her soothes my fears. Her concern for me is obvious, despite the fact that it's partially hidden behind a harsh veneer of self-protectiveness. Min is more clinical in her interactions with me and reminds me of my grandfather. I'm dizzy and nauseous again, probably from trying to sit up. I lay my head down and stare at a single speck on the wall, drifting off as Cai and Min whisper about me.

A little while later, I hear someone moving the rocks at the mouth of the cave and instinctively scoot back a little further into the darkness. Not knowing what kind of dangers I face even here in this cave has been unnerving. The sounds indicate only one set of hands moving the rocks and no real hurry to get inside, though. Still, I can't help but be afraid at hearing something moving outside the cave. Earlier what I think must have been a small animal kept me feeling on edge for a long time by scratching around on the rocks above me.

I watch as Cai crawls through the opening of the cave and replaces the rocks behind her. She must be planning to stay for a while. I can't understand the first part of what Cai says to me, but the sentence ends with something about "food." She offers me a small bowl of soup. The bottom of the bowl looks like it has rice in it. The smell of food turns my stomach, but I don't want to seem ungrateful.

"Thank you," I tell Cai in the most polite way I know how.

Since my grandfather is a doctor and helped teach me the Chinese I am able to speak, I actually know a few words about medicine and illness. After staring at my meal of rice and broth for a few minutes as Cai hold holds it in her delicate looking hands, I try to explain that I can't eat right now.

Cai frowns and sits down beside me.

"You need to eat," she tells me. She looks down at the bowl, and I wonder if she prepared what's in it for me herself.

"I can't," I tell her sadly.

"Try. You must eat and drink."

I close my eyes, swallow, and wonder how I can possibly explain that I'm going to be sick if I eat the food or even drink anything. I suddenly realize that I'm wearing my uniform again. One of the women must have washed it for me because when I look down at my chest most of the mud is gone. It's dry. I wonder with a shiver who dressed me because I don't remember doing it myself.

Cai nudges my shoulder to gain my attention and kneels beside me, lifting my head to help me eat more comfortably. As I stop daydreaming I notice that she's offering me some of the rice and soup with a spoon. I must look bewildered because she shyly smiles at me. She's doing something only my own mother has ever done for me. Even my mother only did it when I was very young. I can't tell Cai "no" anymore because I'm afraid she be even more upset and worried if I don't eat. So, I try. I hold my breath, open my mouth, and swallow the food. It's doesn't turn my stomach as much as I thought it would.

After a few bites I repeat, "Thank you," and put my hand up to try to politely refuse more. Cai keeps offering spoonfuls of rice, though. I fight back the nausea until I've eaten almost all of what's left in the bowl, but finally I start to gag a little with each bite. I lift my hand and gently push the bowl away while repeating how grateful I am. Cai nods. Then she begins to eat what's left of the food. That doesn't really surprise me. I don't know exactly how much food Cai's family has, but based on the fact that they are all quite thin it can't be that much. I suspect they have to give someone else, maybe a land owner, most of the rice that it appears they grow. They probably don't waste a grain of rice, which is one of many reasons I hope I don't get sick.

"I have a name like yours," Cai says quietly as she finishes the bowl of rice and sits it down beside her. Although I don't know them well I have gathered that Cai doesn't talk that much. Min's the talker.

"Oh? What's your name?" I ask self-conscious about how weak my voice sounds and how bad my Chinese probably is. Again I wish I had paid more attention to what my grandparents taught me, but it never seemed very relevant at the time. Even though my grandparents told me they thought that learning Chinese was important I didn't know many people who spoke Chinese in the U.S., and the ones I did know were my grandparents' friends who usually spoke English as well. As a kid I mostly used Chinese as a secret code with my brother when we wanted to play tricks on our friends. I don't know what Cai means by a name like mine, but I want her to tell me.

"An English boy called me 'katniss.' He said I was 'prickly,'" she explains as she looks down at her hands where they nervously tug at the hem of her shirt. Her dark hair falls down around her ears a little. I want to reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear. God, she's beautiful.

"What does that mean?" she mumbles.

I shake myself out of the trance of watching her, but I don't know how to answer her question. Cai says the boy called her "prickly," and it doesn't sound like a compliment. "Katniss" is just a water plant. I don't understand why he'd have called her that. I decide to focus on the boy himself so I can figure it out.

"An English boy? Here?" I clarify.

"Yes. Years ago. He called me 'katniss' and said I was 'prickly.' What's 'prickly?'"

I lift my hand and dig my thumbnail into the pad of my index finger and say "prickly." Then I pull the blanket down from my chest and run my hand along my shirt up and down like I'm sewing the seam with a needle and thread. I push my thumb and index finger together like I'm holding a needle and bob my other index finger over what would be the top of the imaginary needle.

"Prickly," I tell her.

Then it dawns on me. The boy must have been saying "cactus." He was saying Cai was "prickly" like a "cactus." She's right to frown and look sad. That isn't a compliment.

She looks confused and maybe a little hurt. This isn't a good memory.

"But 'katniss' is a plant. Like a flower," I tell her. Cai lifts her eyes a little. Her eyes are so beautiful. I've gotta' stop thinking of her like this.

"I think you are like a flower," I blurt out, before I can stop myself. Then I wince. That's not the kind of statement that's going to discourage my growing fascination with Cai.

The edges of Cai's lips turn up just as she casts her eyes down. Her efforts don't hide the blush across her cheeks. I could tell her about the cactus part, but I feel bad enough that I explained "prickly" to her. Hopefully she won't think about that very much.

"You can call me 'katniss,'" Cai says. "I…I like it when you say it."

I'm pleasantly surprised, so much so that I can feel my cheeks burn. I hope she doesn't notice.

"Yes. I'd like that," I reply. Honestly, the boy is right. Cai is a little "prickly," but I don't think she means to be that way.

She smiles. She still isn't making eye contact. She's being polite, but to me she looks shy.

"Katniss," I say. She looks at me. "Thanks for the food. I feel better. You were right. I needed to eat."

She lifts her eyes a little more, looking satisfied with herself.


	4. Not Alone

Opening my eyes I expect to be looking down at a quiet landscape and not up into near total darkness, but I quickly realize that I'm not on the plane anymore. Where am I? Reaching my hand to my aching head causes beads of sweat to fall down the side of my forehead. Though I am achy all over my leg hurts more than anything else, a fact I can't quite explain. Squinting my eyes closed tightly I try harder to remember what's happened.

I've had another nightmare, but I only remember the terror not the content. Perhaps I am still trapped in the nightmare, believing I am waking up within it while I'm really fast asleep in my bunk at the barracks or in my own soft bed back in Pittsburgh. Is that possible?

I vaguely remember being brought to wherever I am by unfamiliar people. Over the next few seconds the memory of the plane crash resurfaces in my consciousness. The fire, the heat, the sound of metal scraping metal, a shift in the plane's descent, something sharp digging into my thigh, a terrible scream, the smell of burning…burning. I jumped not because I knew it was the right time but to avoid the flames.

But where am I now? I ask myself again.

Becoming gradually more aware, I pass my hand across my hip and down to my thigh. Even before I touch it I can feel heat radiating from the place that hurts so badly. I very gently press my fingertips against the taut skin and find that it's hot and dry. Sighing with frustration, I push the back of my throbbing head a little harder against the unyielding surface below me.

Not good.

Something cold suddenly grazes my other arm and causes me to roll abruptly to the left. The side of my injured leg makes contact with the ground unexpectedly. The pain of the contact rips through me immediately, and I shift back the other way, lift my head and shoulders off the ground, and bend at the waist in a failed attempt to stop the rising pain. Surprisingly, the only sound I make is a strangled moan. Then I fall slightly forward and sideways, but not as far as I know I should. Instead, I'm caught by a pair of arms draped in soft cloth that feels cool against my hot skin. I shiver.

"Stay still," a quiet voice suggests. "You need to rest." I do become still. How can I not? Moving takes my breath away.

The voice is familiar, but interpreting the words takes a moment because they aren't spoken in English. They're in Chinese. Why Chinese?

I hear a scuffling sound, feel the arms I'm leaning on give a little, and then sense that I'm being lowered down slowly. I glance up to see the silhouette of a girl's face. The back of my head comes to rest in her lap, and she shifts her legs underneath my neck and shoulder. I exhale slowly, still not quite believing that I'm not alone.

"Delly," I choke out. It's dark. I can't see clearly, but it must be Delly here with me and holding me this way. I settle against her gratefully. But when I look up again I can see the moonlight shine on my companion's face. She's not Delly, though her face is known to me. I try to place the familiar image.

Delly is beautiful, but this girl looks beautiful to me in a different way. I'm fascinated by her high cheekbones, smooth skin, and piercing eyes. I want to keep looking at her. Her gentle hand grazes my neck, the other one wrapped around me so that she's cradling me in her arm as I rest in her lap. Her arm can't quite reach around me, but she tries none-the-less. And it doesn't matter, I feel safe lying in her lap. I have to close my eyes as my senses become overwhelmed with both pain and pleasure. What an odd mix of feelings.

I curl into the girl despite not remembering who she is. The coolness of her body is soothing. I'm too hot and begin to pluck at the front of my shirt with my fingers. But they don't work as they should. I drop my hand beside my face in frustration, feeling helpless at my inability to perform such a simple task. The girl flinches but then quiets again. Then I feel her hand on my chest, her fingers moving quickly to loosen the first button on my shirt. I shudder when her fingers move to the next button in the near darkness. Once another is loosened the cool air of the cave washes over the overheated skin of my chest, finally bringing me some relief. The girl brings her hand back to her lap and picks up my hand before slowly entwining my fingers with hers.

"Katniss," I whisper, as the memory of the girl sharing the story of her nickname suddenly comes back to me. "You're not 'prickly,'" I add. She squeezes my hand in response.

But her reassuring presence doesn't stop fear from gripping me again. A sense of doom washes over me a moment later, and I find myself unable to avoid telling the girl everything that's running through my head.

"I had a brother who died as a child," I explain, "I have another brother too. He's still alive. He's in Europe now. In the army. So, at least I hope he's still alive. But my brother who died years ago, he got sick. Very sick," I ramble. "My grandfather said one day he'd just fall asleep and never wake up..."

I stop midsentence to look at the girl again. She stares back at me intensely, her face illuminated again by the moonlight.

"Wait," I say with a sigh. "You don't understand me, do you?" I ask her. Her bewildered expression tells me that she does't even understand my question.

"My brother died," I tell her matter-of-factly in Chinese. I can feel her tense her leg muscles under my head. "He didn't just fall asleep when he was dying. He couldn't breathe," I went on.

I've had dreams in Chinese, haven't I? Talking to her is something like that.

"We all tried to pretend everything was all right for as long as we could. We didn't want to upset my brother, but I think he knew. He was the one comforting us and talking about how we'd be fine if anything happened to him. You know? He comforted us," I tell her. "But at the end he couldn't."

Wait. I'm supposed to speak to her in Chinese. I forgot.

I'd unknowingly switched back to English while talking about the brother that I'd lost.

"Where are we?" I ask in Chinese.

Katniss rubs the thumb of the hand that holds mine against my wrist.

"In a cave," she answers. "We are hiding you."

"A cave," I repeat.

"Yes," she answers.

My heart races in my chest again.

Why am I not at home? Didn't I fly in an airplane somewhere? Is school out for Christmas?

I look up at the girl who is holding me so tenderly. I've been speaking to her in Chinese.

"In China," I say, letting out a breath and melting into her just a little more with the realization of just how far away I am from those I love. Still, I'm so glad she's here with me.

"I'm not my brother," I blurt out in Chinese. "It wasn't supposed to be this way, and I can't make anybody feel better."

Katniss lowers her eyes solemnly.

I bend my knee because it has grown stiff and I feel like I need to move it. As the agony of my mistake hits me the girl wraps my head and shoulders in her arms tightly, and she doesn't let go. I breathe through the pain and then straighten my leg, inch by merciless inch. Overwhelmed by everything that's happening to me I rock gently back and forth. It's comforting, like something from long ago.

My mother's arms. Sitting in a small rocking chair while I'm holding a book. A swing. The sound of metal scraping metal as the swing goes back and forth.

The girl finally loosens her hold a little as I start to relax again. I feel so close to her. I am so close to her while she leans over me like this. She brushes her hand through the hair just behind my ear, across my neck, and down my arm. Wanting her to keep touching me, I follow her hand with my own when it moves away.

"I don't want to be alone," I whisper before I can stop myself from saying it.

The girl's legs shake underneath me, and my chest feels unexpectedly full. I'm so lost, but I don't want to make this girl sad or afraid. Could what I'm asking of her be seen as using her in some terrible way? This kind of thing would be forbidden even at home. I can't imagine that it's acceptable here in China, but we aren't actually doing anything wrong. This girl is just trying to help me.

I reach out and touch her arm where it is wrapped around me. Her elbow is pressed tightly against her own body, and I can feel that she's shaking all over now. No, not shaking. It's more like a vibration. Maybe it's both. And then I hear her. She's singing softly.

Turning my head, I press my lips against her arm several times as I listen to her soft, sweet voice reverberate off the cave walls. I know I shouldn't kiss her, but these are kisses. I can't deny that. Emotions I never knew I had well up inside me. She continues to sing, and I listen as I nuzzle my cheek against her arm. I imagine pulling her down to me. At least I think I imagine it.

Oh, God I hope I'm not actually doing that. I'm not, am I?

She's not singing anymore. Right before the delirium pulls me under completely I feel her fingers brush my ear. Her lips touch mine. I sigh, let go of my hold on reality, and I sink back into unconsciousness.

/

_India 1944 – (two months before the plane crash)_

_"You'll never get lost with Mellark as your navigator, that's for sure," our pilot, John, boasts. "Best B-29 navigator we've got."_

_I roll my eyes._

_"You ever get scared going over those mountains, the Himalayas?" our newest crew member, George, asks. John doesn't answer._

_"They call the mountain range 'the hump,'" I explain, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "I always feel better once we're past it"_

_"These B-29's…what're they really like? Do they have many problems?" George asks, trying yet again to engage John in conversation. The only comment John's made during the entire conversation with our new crewmember is the one about my navigation skills. I'm certain he's deliberately avoiding interacting with George._

_John worries. Finding the idea of failing his crew completely unacceptable, he chooses to deny the possibility. Our lives rest in John's hands, especially as we fly over the Himalayas on our journey to the small bases in China. After a very brief stay at one of those bases we fly even further east. Some of our missions involve transporting supplies that will be used to fight the war in the Pacific. Others involve directly bombing Japanese targets. Once our mission is complete we make the long flight back, repeating the whole process in reverse._

_At times I understand John's aloof attitude. When you are flying a plane and you are the only one aboard a mistake can easily result in your own death, but if you make a mistake flying a B-29 your whole crew can die with you. John takes that responsibility very seriously. I cover for his detachment, as usual. John says I can charm the fleas off a dog._

_"Well, for a gunner like you the biggest risk is a fire control blister popping," I tell George. "With the pressurized cabin and the high altitudes you can blow right out of the plane if that happens."_

_He looks worried, and I can't blame him. Being assigned to a new type of aircraft is stressful after months of flying in something else._

_"Just remember to wear your safety line. All the gunners need to wear them," I add._

_He nods._

_"They've done some good work toward improving the engine problems on the B-29's," I say reassuringly. "We hear about fewer engine fires now."_

_There's an awkward pause. Airmen fear fire more than anything. Burning to death is a bad way to die, and we all heard stories about B-29 engines catching fire even before they came into service. Our newest crewmember would be wondering about those rumors._

_As if on cue John finally comes to life at that moment. He chuckles and slaps George on the shoulder._

_"You know how we got the name 'The Mockingjay' for our B-29?" he asks._

_George shakes his head, of course. Planes are almost always given names, and there is usually a story behind the name. Some of the stories are more amusing than others._

_"Mellark wanted to call it 'The Mockingbird,' but I wanted 'The Blue Jay,'" he explains. "We compromised. Great name, isn't it?" John asks._

_The new fellow points to the illustration of our "mockingjay" on the nose of our B-29. "Yeah, but that painting looks a lot more like a girl inspired by a mockingbird than a blue jay," he says._

_He's right. When I painted the picture of a woman on the nose of the airplane I gave her dark mysterious eyes. She's wearing a smoky gray dress. Her raven-colored hair fans out over her shoulders, but the background behind her is a blue sky. In fact, I added the sky not in deference to John's blue jay idea but to make the rest of the painting show up against the metal armor of the B-29._

_"Well, John can't paint. I can," I explain. "So the compromise went a little more my way than his."_

_"Why didn't you paint her topless?" George asks me while glancing toward another B-29 on the field which does have an illustration of a topless girl adorning it._

_John laughs exceptionally hard, this time at my expense, "Oh, you have a lot to learn about Peter Mellark if you think he's going to paint a topless girl on the nose of an airplane." John stares at the "mockingjay" painting for a moment. "She does look like she's mocking us, though." John says turning to me, "is that what you think of girls, Peter? Does Delly mock you?" John asks, referring to my fiancée back home. He's starting to make me angry._

_"No," I say slipping my hands into my jacket pockets and grinning like I find the whole conversation hilarious._

_John looks at the new fellow._

_"Peter thinks he's a good liar, but he's not that good. The truth always comes out in the end. He wears his heart on his sleeve," John tells him before turning on his heel to face George. "What about you. You got a girl?" John asks him._

_"Na. Not yet. Someday," he answers._

_"No. Not someday. Soon. No time like the present," John's getting more animated by the second, and I have no idea what's gotten into him. "Here's what you do. We win this war, and you go home to Bufallo in your spiffy uniform."_

_"Tennessee, John. He's from Tennessee." I correct. George even sounds like he's from Tennessee and I wonder how John could be so wrong about remembering where he's from._

_"You could go anywhere, you know? But let's say you go home to Tennessee," John continues. "You meet the girl of your dreams, and you tell her all about the war. You tell her how you were an airman and flew over the Himalayas, the highest mountains in the world. Hell, you can tell her you were the pilot. I don't care. You let her think that all of it was so," he pauses, "majestic," he finishes before throwing his hand up in the air for emphasis._

_"Majestic?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. "Are you drunk, John?"_

_"Stone cold sober," he says looking at me with an offended scowl before continuing. "You tell her it was amazing and that you were saving the world. And she'll have to go out with you."_

_I can feel the muscles of my face tightening into an expression of disbelief, "Is that what we're doing? Saving the world?"_

_"Hell no! I mean, I don't think so. Probably not. I don't think the world can be saved anyway," John stammers._

_"He's not usually like this," I tell George, who's by this point watching John with increasing trepidation._

_"Then she'll fall in love with you," John adds. "And she'll never leave you. Never. She'll keep her promises to you. You'll be her hero. You can get married and have babies together," John explains. "It'll be great…"_

_I think I hear his voice crack at the end, and his expression falls flat. His eyes fall to his boots._

_"Is that what you're going to do?" George asks John. The question strikes me as odd, but somebody had to say something._

_"John has a fiancée," I begin, covering for John's apparent absence from the conversation again. "That picture in his…"_

_"I don't have a fiancée," John interrupts. Then he swallows hard. "I got a letter from Penny. She. Um. She married somebody else. She said she was 'sorry.'"_

_He raises his gaze to meet mine, his eyes vacant and red._

_"When did that happen?" I ask, dumbfounded. He and Penny had been together for years, since they were 15 or something like that._

_"Yesterday," he mutters. "I mean, I got the letter yesterday. She's actually been married for longer."_

_"She couldn't wait 'til you got home to break your heart?" I shouted angrily, not even thinking about the fact that I am standing in the middle of an airfield. John looks around nervously. The airfield might be quiet because we are waiting on more fuel to arrive before flying more missions, but it is an airfield none the less. I manage to lower my voice a little._

_John ponders my response for a moment before concluding, "I guess not."_

_George takes a deep breath. "I'm gonna' go," he says. "I'm meeting some guys. For. Uh. Something."_

_"Okay," I say without looking at him. If he's got any sense he'll understand._

_John's staring straight ahead with those vacant eyes. "Maybe she thought I wouldn't make it home," he says._

_"Then that's even worse," I tell him with a sigh. Then I catch myself. "And you're going to make it home. Don't talk like that anymore."_


	5. Water

 

Peeta 

Pennsylvania 1936 (age 13)

_"Don't forget to bend your knees." Dad says smiling. "You're getting so tall." We're both wearing white robes, which seems ridiculous to me even though I've seen people wear them a thousand times for this same purpose. I'm not sure how the church women get this dingy lake water out of them afterwards. Bleach, I guess. People are gathering by the lake to watch. The turnout is good, of course. Dad's baptizing thirty people. I'm just one of them. "I won't forget. It would be embarrassing for you if I drowned," I tease him and am rewarded with one of his most genuine smiles. I love to see him smile. The last few years have been hard on him and my mother, and I often overhear them talking late into the night. She cries, and Dad talks to her softly. I'm not supposed to hear any of it, but I do. I think they are talking about my brother who died, and I miss him too. Maybe if we could talk about him anytime we wanted things would be better. I'm the last one in line at the lake, and when it's my turn I take Dad's hand and step down into the water which reaches my waist. "This is my son, Peter," Dad says, another smile breaking across his face. It noticeably changes the cadence of his formal speaking voice. "Most of you know Peter," he goes on. Amused snickers can be heard coming from the crowd as Dad continues. "He comes today to publicly profess his faith and be baptized before this congregation. Is that correct, Peter?" The crowd is silent as I softly answer, "yes." Then, anticipating the next few moments, I take a deep breath, put my hand over my mouth, and pinch my nose closed with my fingers. "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," my father says. His voice catches, and he pauses. His hands seem unsteady when he places one over the hand I'm resting it across my nose and mouth and his other hand on my back._ _Closing my eyes, I do all the work of leaning back into the water because I know Dad's tired. At the last second he dunks my head underneath the surface of the lake, but I can still hear his muffled voice saying, "We are buried with Christ in Baptism." My toes search for the lake bottom again and when they find purchase I start to stand up. My face breaks the surface of the water a fraction of a second later. "And we are raised to walk in a new life," Dad finishes. Our hands drop to my side, and Dad squeezes mine._

/

Cold water splashes my face, and I startle awake sputtering and gasping. "Sorry. So sorry," Cai tells me, laying an open hand on my heaving chest. In her other hand she holds some kind of pottery pitcher, but she quickly sits it down to brush some of my drenched hair off my forehead. Her eyes dart up and down my body, looking me over worriedly. "I had to wake you for you to drink," Cai explains in a flustered tone. "My mother says nobody lives long without water." I nod and raise my gaze to meet her concerned one, but I wonder why the dousing with water was necessary just to wake me. Was I really that out of it? Looking out toward the mouth of the cave I notice that it's dusk, but I don't know what day it is. Now I know why people scratch tally marks in the walls of jail cells. It's so they know how long they've been imprisoned. I try to ask Cai what day it is, but my mouth is so dry that I can't form words. "See. Drink," Cai encourages as she pushes a metal cup filled with lukewarm water into the palm of my hand. I wrap my fingers tightly around it, put it to my lips, and am starting to take a sip when I'm struck by the memory of Cai's lips brushing mine. My eyes grow wide, and I grimace with embarrassment. Cai cocks her head to the side curiously as I lower my gaze in an attempt to hide my reactions. I don't even know if what I remember actually happened. Did I pull Cai down to me as I'd wanted to do? Did her lips brush mine? Did she want that? I wonder if Cai hates me…or will hate me, and I can't bear that thought. She's one of the few human beings I have contact with anymore. She doesn't act like she hates me. And Delly. What would Delly say if she could see what's been happening with Cai? I'm simply trying to survive. There's still a chance that I might be able to get back home. But Delly would be so upset if she knew I'd touched another girl. I close my eyes tightly and try to picture Delly's sweet smile, sincere eyes, and soft blonde curls. Then I reach my hand up to the pocket of my uniform, but I don't feel the stiff paper of the photograph of Delly I've been carrying there during my time in the war. It probably fell apart in the water of the rice paddy and was washed away in pieces by whoever cleaned my uniform. Suddenly I ache to have that little piece of paper back, to hold it in the palm of my hand as I have so many times before. Cai, apparently sensing my distress, pulls on my shoulders awkwardly. I attempt to sit up so I can get into a better position for drinking. Once I'm almost sitting Cai quickly plops down with her back pressed up against mine, making sure I stay upright despite my weakness. I take a few sips of water and realize how good it feels against my parched lips and mouth. Cai feels good too, so good. I close my eyes again, willing my thoughts to shift back to my fiancée. The night before I left home for the army comes to mind. Delly and I leaned up against that rocky ledge overlooking the valley at the state park for so long that the chill from the ground finally reached my bones. You'd think that all the kissing and caressing would have kept me warm, but fear had set in also. "We should probably be getting back to the car," I told Delly. "Your parents might be worried about you." "Oh, I doubt that. I'm with you. And we deserve some time to say…well, you know. People understand." "Goodbye." She couldn't even admit that we were saying goodbye. "I'd stay here all night with you if I could," she continued, and she snuggled her cheek against the side of my body, tickling the skin over my ribs. "And why don't you?" I asked in a whisper, the words coming out more suggestively than I'd intended. Delly grinned. "Because you're already feeling guilty about the ration cards we used for the gas to drive all the way out here, and you're concerned about whether my parents are worried about me. No reason to add to that when I can just try to make you happy for a little while. You're very predictable, Peter. That's one reason I love you." "Dependable. I prefer the term dependable," I told her as I leaned in to kiss her again. "Don't worry. My father won't mind," she said, fighting my attempts to distract her. "About the ration cards, I mean," Delly continued. "Besides, I'm loaning my country you, Peter. That's enough of a sacrifice, don't you think?" She lowered her head so that I ended up kissing her forehead instead of her lips. Then she ran her hand across my chest and buried her face in my shoulder. "I'm so afraid," Delly admitted in a trembling voice. "Why is this happening?" "I'm sorry," I blurt out to Cai as my thoughts shift back to the present. "I was so sick. I wasn't thinking. I hope I didn't do anything…" I try to think of the right word in Chinese. I'm looking for something like 'disrespectful,' but respect is rather a different concept here. I have to be careful I choose the right word, and I can't think of any of the right ones at the moment. "I hope I didn't do anything wrong," I finally say, not sure if that wording is any better. I feel Cai shift a little behind me. "Keep drinking. You are better today," she says, her voice lifting hopefully at the end of the sentence. My fever is down. That's for sure. My leg is still disturbingly red and swollen, but as long as I don't move it too much the pain's more tolerable. Cai continues to sit behind me quietly. If anything about me has made her feel uncomfortable, at least she hasn't given up on taking care of me. For the moment I'm dependent on her and her family. She shifts again, and I wonder if Cai knows what I truly meant when I said, "sorry." "You were kind, and I shouldn't have…" I begin. Then I stop, unsure of what else to say. What if some of the things I remember didn't even happen? I hear Cai swallow. Suddenly her hand covers mine, her fingers stroking my skin. Her hands are calloused and rough from work, but that friction in her touches only makes them more intriguing. "I am glad you are better, Peeta," Cai tells me. My fingers tremble under hers. Her touch sends frissons of electricity up my arm. I am sure she feels it too. Oh, no. I can't do this. Not here. Not with Cai. What about Delly? I can't do this. I'm just lonely. That's all. Perhaps Cai is just as lonely, but none of that would be an excuse for acting on some fleeting feelings. There's the sound of rocks being moved at the mouth of the cave, and Min crawls inside moments later. "Mother says we have to wash that wound," she announces. I can just make out enough to understand that she's boiled some strips of cloth and that they will wash the wound with the ones that are still wet and wrap it with the ones that have dried. "Uncover your leg. Just your leg," Min says matter-of-factly. She's sounds just like her mother. She's probably going to start tossing items around the cave any minute since she's already ordering everybody around. Cai warns me that she's going to move and slowly removes herself from supporting me. She waits patiently for a moment to make sure I'm able to sit up unassisted, and I'm surprised to find that I can. When Cai crawls around to where I can see her again I notice that she looks flushed and avoids my knowing glances. Min passes Cai the bowl of water she dragged in from outside the cave. "You have to learn to do this by yourself," Min tells her with a firm tone. "Mother and I have to go…" "I know. I know," Cai says. Min returns to the task at hand by slowly untying the bandages. When the last layer pulls at the wound and I flinch, Cai squeezes my shoulder gently with her hand. I relax more than I thought I could. Min's eyes briefly glance at her sister's gesture. Cai looks down at the wound, wincing a little and then softening her expression when she sees me watching at her. Min puts her finger in the water. "Not too hot," she points out to Cai. Then she stares at Cai as if waiting for her to continue the process of cleaning the wound. Cai hesitantly pours the water over my leg spilling a little of it on the blanket. She dabs the cloth against the wound but looks away twice as she works. I watch her, unable to tear my eyes away. Watching her somehow dulls the pain. "How does your mother know all this?" I ask. "She's a healer. She learned in the city when she was young," Cai explains. "What city?" I ask. She doesn't answer, only looks away. Min takes over dressing the wound. I turn my head and watch as Cai leaves the cave, wondering what made her leave so abruptly. I had thought for years that I didn't have the stomach for being a doctor, but apparently Cai is much more squeamish than I am. I hear a man's voice as Cai nears the entrance of the cave and look nervously to Min. "It's all right," she tells me.

/

Cai

Gao is soft on his feet, but I can hear him. Years of living in the same family makes him so familiar to me that I can almost recognize his breathing as distinct from Min's or my mother's. By comparison, knowing his footsteps or sensing his presence is easy. He watches me sometimes, and I used to think it was simply because he was growing older and closer to the time that we'd be old enough to marry. When that time for marriage came and went I found explanations for his behavior harder to come by. What was his interest in me if not as a wife? Why did he stare? Now that Peeta is here I've noticed that Gao watches me even more intensely. Could he be jealous? He hasn't followed me into the cave when I care for Peeta at all, but he certainly seems to know when I'm there. So when I hear his footsteps outside the cave I decide to go out to talk to him. Min seems to intuitively understand. Perhaps she's noticed the increase in his quiet observations of me also. "So how's the ghost?" he asks, referring to Peeta. "Are you asking if he's dead?" I reply sarcastically. "No. If he were dead you wouldn't be out here. He's what pulls you away from where you should be." "And where should I be, Gao?" I ask. He doesn't answer. Though he holds all the power in our relationship at the moment Gao often backs down if I challenge him. I've come to believe that he feels badly for letting me down and rejecting the life his father planned for him. "By the way, his name is Peeta. We should probably call him that," I tell Gao. "Really? So how is Peeta then?" Gao asks, raising an eyebrow. I sigh and shake my head. "He had a bad night last night. A fever." "But he'll live?" Gao asks. "How would I know," I answer, frustration clear in my voice. Gao curses, and I startle from the shock of hearing it. He doesn't usually say such words in front of me, and even amongst the men of our community he usually avoids them. "He's going to get us all killed, Cai. Why did you insist on going back for him?" Gao asks in a harsh whisper. I start to walk away, but Gao grabs my arm and I quickly turn toward him again. "They'll come looking for survivors, Cai. The Japanese. They'll send soldiers." "Why would they?" "Because there are survivors sometimes. In this case, one survivor." I pause, a shiver running down my spine at the thought of soldiers here at our farm. But Gao is always trying to manipulate me, and I won't let him do it this time. "Stop it, Gao. If the soldiers come then it will be because that plane crashed in our rice paddy, not because we're hiding Peeta…" "But if they find out we helped him in any way it will be a thousand times worse than if we'd just left him in the rice paddy," Gao interrupts. "We should put him back where we found him and make everything look as it did before." I stare at Gao for a moment, unable to wrap my mind around the idea of exposing Peeta to that kind of danger. While it's true that I thought it would be better if he died when I first brought Min out to see him in the field, now I know him. "I just want to keep you safe, and what about your mother? What about Min?" Gao adds, touching my arm gently with his fingertips. As I'm listening to him I wonder why he doesn't just say, "we're putting Peeta back where we found him." I question why he doesn't use the authority I know he probably could exert over me. And then I realize something. Gao still wants me on his side. He wants me to willingly be whatever I am to him, even if he only thinks of me as a something like a sister. "You can't keep me safe. There is no 'safe' anymore," I tell him. "Leave Peeta alone, Gao." "I'll decide whether I leave him alone, and I'll actually consider people other than myself when I do it," he answers. I turn away quickly, before Gao can stop me again. As I make my way out to the field I wonder if I should have tried to calm Gao. If he became angry enough, could he hurt Peeta? Kill him? I stop walking, sobered by the thought of Gao killing this man I met only a few days ago. Gao could certainly kill if he thought he was shielding us from harm. Normally I'd be proud and grateful for his protectiveness, but I don't want Peeta to die.


	6. Chance

Peeta

The days and nights pass, punctuated primarily by visits from Cai. I usually wake up alone, but on one morning when the rain is pounding against the stones that shelter me I feel her sleeve graze my cheek as I'm opening my eyes. Cai's putting fresh water in the small clay pitcher she always leaves sitting beside me. Even though sleeping on the hard stone floor makes my neck stiff I turn to her as she sits down beside me. emboldened by my somnolent state, I reach up and touch her arm. My eyes start to close but when I see the corners of her mouth turn up just a little I force them back open to watch the tentative smile unfold across her face. She is better for me than any medicine could be.

She settles beside me as if she's going to stay for a while. Grasping the bottom hem of her top between her thumb and fingers, she nervously runs her hand along it. The blue thread she touches is darker than the fabric that makes up the garment. I sense that she wants to say something, but she doesn't. Even in hesitation Cai looks beautiful, maybe more beautiful. I imagine her bringing that hesitation into shy caresses and soft kisses…into lying next to me and then slowly inching her way towards me to make greater physical contact. I look away, trying to hide the flush that I can feel spreading across my cheeks.

Stop, I tell myself. She doesn't want that with you. She wants it with Gao, if she wants it at all.

Cai lays her hand on my shoulder, which only serves to fuel my fantasies. Presumably she's trying to regain my attention because she believes she's lost it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I turn to see Cai point at my leg.

"Oh," I say, "I can do it."

She narrows her dark eyes in concern.

"I can," I tell her.

"No," she tells me and then continues explaining why I shouldn't change the dressing myself in Chinese that I can barely understand. I'm too busy watching her lips move to understand. They move so fast when she speaks. I want reach up to touch them with my fingers and make them stop moving.

In the end Cai crawls to the very front of the cave near its opening. I assume that she must have just explained to me how she would give me some privacy to dress the wound alone. Carefully I slip my pants down and manage to remove the cloth they've wrapped around my injured leg, but I'm not coordinated enough in such an awkward position to clean the wound and re-wrap it. Defeated, I cover up with the blanket and call to Cai.

She crawls over then clears her throat as she gently goes about the business of re-dressing the uncovered wound. She doesn't have to look away this time. When she's finished she looks up at my face, sympathy apparent as she presses her lips together and softens her eyes.

She feels sorry for me. The last thing a man wants a woman he finds attractive to feel for him is pity.

I thank her in an embarrassed whisper while quickly covering my injured leg up with the blanket just as the rest of me is covered. Being partially undressed in front of her for even the most practical of reasons bothers me, making my thoughts wander to where I would prefer they not go at the moment.

Thinking about women is natural, and my father taught me that it's how I respond to those thoughts that matters. He even said some responses can seem a bit out of a person's control. I know which ones he means. I also know I'm going to be thinking about Cai all day now. I'm used to Delly being so far away. Even before the war I was away at school much of the time. Cai's daily presence and the familiarity of our interactions makes this experience so different.

"Your leg looks better," she tells me.

Trying to plan a discreet way to pull up my uniform pants, I reposition the blanket. I feel so vulnerable, yet that vulnerability brings a strange sense of longing along with its terror. I grab hold of the blanket where it rests at my chest and hold it tight.

"Maybe," I say.

"No, it does," she reassures me. Her voice blends with the sound of the steadily falling rain.

Tilting her head a little she asks me, "Peeta, what's it like to fly a plane?" I suspect she just wants to get my mind off my current problems, but I'm grateful for the distraction.

"Cold," I answer.

Cai drops her head a little, a small giggle escaping her lips. "I hadn't thought about that," she says, "but I've always wondered what the clouds feel like to touch."

In the middle of the brutal world all around us Cai has such an unmistakable innocence. Not naivety. Just innocence. I remember looking up "clouds" in an encyclopedia to try to find out why they were white and what held them together when I was about ten. I wonder if Cai has thought of those questions as well, or if she is only interested in how they feel.

"Clouds feel like nothing, but they look very pretty close up," I tell her. "It's a shame they aren't soft…like…" I want to say, "pillows" but can't think of the word. "Soft." I repeat.

I twist my neck to try to catch Cai's gaze because she's keeping her eyes cast downwards for some reason. She won't let me look at her, instead she reaches for some food she's brought me.

"How did you end up flying instead of doing something else in the war?" She asks.

"I volunteered."

She nods.

"For honor, then?" She asks.

"I think I just wanted to fly," I confess. "It sounded exciting to see the world from the sky."

"It's good to be a pilot, Peeta."

"…unless your plane catches fire and crashes."

"Well, that's certainly not good," she says, and I notice how easy it's become for me to talk to her.

"I wasn't flying our plane, you know. I was the one trying to make sure we flew to the right place. My friend was the pilot. His name was John."

Cai brings the dish of rice closer to me and offers me a pair of chopsticks.

"Do you miss him?" she asks.

"Very much," I tell her. "He's one of the best friends I've ever had."

I imagine how John would have elbowed me and said, "You're so smitten with that girl. Kiss her already."

Of course, she's Chinese. I'm not. Plus, I'm engaged. Technically, so is she. Something tells me Gao would not take kindly to me kissing Cai. Cai might be highly offended or even see such a gesture as some kind of assault. I have little idea of what the social norms here are, but I can't help but think of my lips meeting Cai's again. This time it would be a true kiss, passionate and long.

"What's wrong?" Cai asks. "You look upset."

I raise up on my elbows and then press my hands and arms against the floor to try to sit up to eat. After briefly considering one swift movement upwards, I instead choose to gradually shift my hips until I'm sitting. Soon I'm grimacing from the pain of the increased movement. Sometimes I wonder if the pain will ever stop. I'm grateful to be alive, but having nothing to help relieve this amount of pain for so long is so exhausting. It tends to build to a crescendo when I move, then gradually grow less intense when I'm still. But the dull, throbbing ache never stops.

My grandfather would never allow this in a patient. He'd have said the pain was an impediment to healing and insisted on morphine. For a doctor who saw so much suffering, he certainly hated it. In her moments of deepest grief my mother would scream that my grandfather had killed my brother by trying to make sure he wasn't in pain, by insisting on too much morphine when my brother was so ill. Grandfather heard her once, got teary eyed, and went home.

I told him later, "mother didn't mean it."

But he said, "never you mind about that, Peter. Your mother needs somebody to blame. Better that she blame me than God."

"But she's wrong," I argued.

"It won't do any good to point that out," he said.

I bend my uninjured leg as the pain builds, scooting back and hoping for a better position. Nothing helps. Finally, I press my forehead against my raised knee.

Why won't it stop?

Cai touches my shoulder, and I'm immediately distracted by that same electric feeling of warmth she's ignited before.

"I'm not upset," I breathe out, my forehead pressing still harder against my knee. "Just thinking. Why don't you tell me a story," I suggest. "Something about your farm or your family. Something good."

"You care about our farm?"

"Yes," I manage to tell her through clinched teeth. My hands wrap protectively around either side of my face to hide my expression.

It's never going to stop. 

"We have rice and some vegetables," Cai says with more than a hint of pride. "We take a little to market, but we have to give most of it to our landlord. We eat the rest. It's not much."

"Is it enough?" I ask, realizing the opportunity to ask an important question. They are all so thin and seem to eat so little that I'm not sure how they survive.

She doesn't answer, so I move my hand away from my face enough to glance over at her.

Her eyes drift to the side, then down.

"Some years we worry that it won't be," she admits.

I get the impression that the fears go much deeper than that.

"But we are respected by the landlord. We do our work well. Once we even tricked him. That's how we got our water buffalo. So the landlord believes we are clever."

"Tricked him?" I ask, the pain slowly becoming more manageable now.

"Well, he made a risky bet. Our landlord loves to gamble. He owned a particularly stubborn water buffalo. Nobody could get this water buffalo to work a field properly or do much of anything else, but Min has a way with animals. The landlord didn't know Min well. He laughed at the idea of a little girl handling such a stubborn animal when Gao mentioned that maybe she could help. So Gao bet with the landlord that if Min lead the water buffalo all the way across his property, she should be allowed to keep the animal."

"And what would the landlord have gotten if Min couldn't lead the water buffalo that far?"

"Min would have become a house servant in the landlord's house," Cai says matter-of-factly.

My heart sinks at the very thought of Min being separated from Cai. Surprised, I ask, "and you weren't afraid of that happening?"

"Oh, no. I was afraid," Cai says. "We were all afraid, but we knew Min probably wouldn't starve as a house servant. She might have with us. Without the bet then maybe all of us would have."

What terrible choices. 

"In the end the bet was worth it," Cai explains. "Min lead the water buffalo across the landlord's property beautifully. He was grateful the stubborn beast would be working a field he owned instead of lazily grazing all day. Min was beside herself with happiness, and we could work the farm more efficiently with the water buffalo than without it. We never told Min about the risk of having to leave home to be a house servant. There are some things you just don't tell children."

I nod in agreement, glad that Min still doesn't know the whole truth.

"Peeta, there's a pond not far from here. My mother thinks it would be a good idea for you to get in the water to strengthen your leg once the wound is healed. Do you swim?"

I hesitate, unable to grasp all that she's implying.

"If not, I can teach you to swim," she adds.

Stunned that she would be the one to teach me I stammer a positive response. Then my mind starts humming, set off in a million directions.

She thinks I'll live long enough to learn to swim. She thinks I can leave this cave at some point. She thinks I'll heal. 

(AN #1: special thanks to Loueze - whose help is always such a huge part of creating each and every chapter of my stories)

(AN #2 Please review)


	7. The Lake

Cai

"For me?" Peeta asks when I offer my father's hat and clothing to him to wear.

"Yes. You and Gao are nearly the same height. From a distance it would be difficult for anyone to notice that you didn't belong here if you were dressed in Chinese clothing. In your uniform…"

"Oh, no. I understand that part," Peeta interrupts. "It's just that these belonged to your father. Are you sure you want me to wear them?"

I smile at his thoughtfulness, his respect for my memories of my father. My father deserves respect, and I know he would be so disappointed with us right now, especially disappointed that Gao and I have not married and joined our families as both Gao's father and my father wanted. My father was such a practical man, and yet I sense that he might have actually liked or admired Peeta in some ways, even though he'd have seen protecting him as dangerous.

"Yes. My father is gone. I honor him by using everything he gave us for our family."

"But for me?" Peeta asks, a surprised lilt in his voice.

"Making sure you are not found is caring for our family," I clarify.

Peeta nods and begins to look over my father's clothing, feeling the fabric with his fingers. It is quite different from that of his uniform.

"I'll wait for you outside," I tell him.

Gao believes the immediate danger of the Japanese inspecting the plane's crash site has passed, and although all of our neighbors know about the crash because of the severity of the fire, what they saw when they helped us clean up the wreckage lead them to believe that there couldn't have been any survivors. Even so, there's always the chance that one of them will see Peeta on our farm, and we cannot predict what they might do if that happens.

But when I see Peeta in my father's clothing what I suspected is confirmed: dressed in Chinese clothing, Peeta does look more like he belongs on our farm than one would imagine a yellow-haired, blue-eyed man could. I lift his chin, revealing his face from under the cone-shaped sun-hat. He smiles shyly, his white teeth shining and his eyes partially closing for protection as the sun hits his face.

"I can't imagine what I must look like," he laughs.

My hand drops at the vibration his laugh causes, and briefly touches his neck on its way down to my side. His eyes follow the route my hand has just taken, and I feel a sudden panic.

Why did I touch him at all? It wasn't necessary. Why didn't he stop me?

"You look like yourself," I tell him. Turning away to gather the two bowls we used for our breakfast and slip them behind a rock just inside the opening of the cave, I attempt to hide my insecurities also. "You're just dressed in clothes like we wear. There's nothing strange about that, Peeta." I lay the chopsticks neatly on top of the bowls before adding, "well, maybe that is strange, but you do want to leave the cave. Don't you?"

"Only if you think it's safe," he answers, a distinct protective tone in his voice. Over the last few weeks Peeta has been worrying about us. He keeps saying he'll leave as soon as he can walk well enough, but Prim and I have warned him that there really isn't anywhere to go. I personally believe Peeta knows that but is willing to take the chance if it means avoiding harming the family he believes has saved his life. He mentions that we have saved his life almost every day, expressing thanks and telling us how he wants to repay us now that he's getting better.

"So, ready to go to the lake?" I ask him.

"Yes," he confirms.

Stronger than I expect him to be, he manages to get to his feet once we are outside the cave, but he can't walk without help. I place my arm around his waist, and I feel his muscles tense under my hand where it comes to rest near the bones of his hip. He's lost weight, his face seeming thinner when he turns to look at me and his body feeling leaner when I help him walk. He eats every bit of food I bring to him now, and I believe he might still be hungry after he's eaten even though he never asks for more food. Unfortunately, I'm giving him all we can spare including some of my own portion. Feeding another person, especially an adult man, is something we simply never expected or could be prepared to do in our current situation.

Peeta begins to limp beside me as I take small steps. He pulls away, testing whether he can walk without leaning on me for support. After a few attempts he shifts back toward me, but I still don't feel burdened by much of his weight. He sighs heavily.

"You are doing well," I tell him.

His injured leg rarely fully touches the ground, but whenever it does I notice a distinct change in his expression. Watching him in pain upsets me, which I don't quite understand because it is not as though I've never seen people in pain in the past. My mother's role as the local healer means the neighbors frequently seek her out for help when people are sick or injured, but she often goes to their homes to visit them. On the rare occasions when they come to our farm, I usually make sure I'm busy somewhere else until they are gone. On the night that Peeta's plane crashed, I ran away out of fear just as I always have, but something changed the night I thought he might die of that fever right there in my arms. I was no longer afraid. Squeamish. Shy. But no longer afraid. I just wanted to be near him, and I still do.

Peeta explains that he used to do some kind of games at school as we are walking.

"They were 'sports.' There was running, ball games, all kinds of games. Have you ever heard of 'baseball?'"

"And why did you do them?" I ask.

"I was required to play one 'sport' every season, but I did enjoy being on the wrestling team."

I don't understand all that he means, but he seems happy to tell the stories. This is one of the many reasons I like to be with him, his stories fascinate me. He tries to explain the different games to me, and I ask questions that make him shake his head and laugh.

"You'll be able to play those games again when you go home," I tell him, my heart feeling suddenly heavy at the thought of Peeta being so far away now that I've gotten so used to him being here with us…with me. The feeling strikes me as odd, and a little scary. I don't want to miss Peeta if he makes it back home. Shouldn't I be happy for Peeta if his people can return him to his family? No doubt he would heal more fully at home with them.

"I don't think I can play again, Cai. I'm not sure I'll even walk well again," he tells me, continuing to search for the right words as he tries hard to express his ideas in Chinese. His eyes often say so much more than he's able to say with his words, and I can tell he's very intelligent even though he makes many mistakes. I wish I could speak his language or he could speak mine better or that he could read the books in Mandarin that the landlord sometimes lets Gao bring to our home. Peeta likes books.

He talks about school some more.

"I liked history and learning about new places," he says.

Peeta's voice is even, not broken with heartsickness as it sometimes is. It was the hopefulness in his voice this morning that first made me know that it would be a good day to try visiting the lake. By the time we arrive Peeta is out of breath from all the walking and talking. He lowers himself down to sit on the trunk of a fallen tree while I compliment him for walking so far.

"I have to keep up with you," he says. "So is there any katniss in the lake?" He teases.

He's told me that "katniss" is a water plant, and in my mind I imagine it like a lotus even though I doubt it looks anything like that. Nobody could believe I resemble a beautiful lotus in any way.

"I don't know what they look like," I admit.

"Just for fun let's imagine there is some katniss in the water." He says. Then he pulls up using my arm for leverage so that he's standing beside me. Sometimes it takes very little to make Peeta happy.

Having worn clothing that I don't mind getting wet I slide down into the water first. Peeta removes my father's shirt, leaving only the shirt he wears under his uniform to cover his upper body. He hesitates, then leaves the hat in place. His eyes glance over at mine in search of approval. I nod.

Peeta has no trouble approaching the lake alone by holding onto a large tree branch and hopping to the edge of the water, but then his good leg slips on the muddy bank. He ends up tumbling clumsily into the water as he tries to use his injured leg to regain his footing. I can't help but stifle a laugh when he comes up from the water sputtering and flailing his arms.

I swim to him, but he's settled his feet on the lake bottom by the time I reach him.

"Now you know why they didn't put me in the navy," he says.

I laugh again.

"I told you I didn't know how to swim," he says. That's true, but imagining Peeta as unable to do something that has always come so naturally to me seems strange.

"Well, the first step is learning to put your head under the water, so you have already done that," I tell him.

He shakes his head back and forth gently at my attempt at humor.

"But the most important part of being here in the water for you is strengthening your leg, so even if you just walk a bit in the water it should help," I explain.

"And the water around my leg is what helps," he points out.

"Yes, my mother would say that the water holds you up so your broken leg doesn't have to work so hard."

He looks down into the water, and I see understanding slowly cross his face. He stands evenly here, as if both of his feet are firmly on the lake bottom. I believe they are, and he just hadn't realized that he was standing so normally until just now. When I look up, his eyes look moist. He nods before looking down into the water again, stretching his hands over the surface of the lake.

I reach out for one of his hands, and he grasps it immediately. Then he takes a few tentative steps through the water. He stays balanced which means he must be putting some weight on his broken leg. As I congratulate him he attempts longer steps, no doubt stretching the muscles that are so difficult for him to move since they lie right beside the broken bone. Walking is not easy for him even here, but overall he accomplishes much more in the water than he has been able to do out of it.

If only mother was well enough to come to the lake with us so she could help Peeta determine what exercises would help his leg most, but unfortunately she's having one of her spells again. She barely speaks to any of us except Min. Even to Min she says only a few sentences a day. She still eats and drinks, but if my father was alive he'd be so disappointed that she's not even the same person he used to know. Most distressing of all, each time one of these spells happens I wonder if I have lost her forever.

Without any specific ideas of what to do Peeta finally just lets himself float, his feet and legs suspended just under the lake surface while he holds onto a tree root that's grown into the water. "I could stay here all day," he says.

"And perhaps you could, but I can't," I tease him. "Too much work to do."

"What kind of work?"

"We're preparing to harvest one of the rice fields, and our roof was damaged in the storm a few nights ago," I tell him.

He nods. "Can I help?"

"Not yet. Maybe soon."

"I want to help, Cai. You know that, right?"

I squeeze his hand, and he looks down at where our hands are joined.

"Yes, Peeta. I know."

Getting out of the water is more challenging than getting into it for Peeta, so I stand on the bank and join our arms to help him. When he's on dry land again I notice how the thin shirt he's wearing clings to his body, outlining the muscles of his arms and chest. He picks up my father's shirt and glances in my direction. I quickly look down, not wanting to be caught watching him.

"So, I thought we might stop on the way back," I tell him.

"Stop where?" he asks.

"I have your things," I explain.

"My things?"

"Things from the plane," I tell him, then immediately wish I hadn't. Why did I bring up the plane today when he seems so happy? His eyes move away from me, off to the side, then back again. I look down regretfully, but he doesn't seem upset with me...exactly. He's just quiet, and I finally look up to see what he's doing. He's just waiting, watching me. Maybe watching me the way I was just watching him but with a much more somber expression than the curious one I probably revealed. If he's staring at me, then maybe that's good. I've made him feel badly, and in another way I can make him feel better. I look down at my wet clothing and shudder at my own thoughts. They don't seem like anything I would or should think.

"I don't know what most of the things are, but I saved them for you. I'll show you," I tell him.

I help Peeta walk to the edge of the woods where I've hidden the items from the plane and find a large tree for him to lean against. Then I remove the leaves and sticks covering the underground hiding place. Reaching down and pulling out the clay pot that holds the items, I look over at Peeta. He's simply watching, his face unreadable and his right hand running across the bark of the tree as he leans his back against the trunk.

Peeta slides down to sit on the ground in front of the tree, his broken leg outstretched. Together we open the lid of the pot. Peeta's eyes widen as he gets a glimpse of what's inside. Then he reaches for a metal, pointed object and runs his fingers across the top of it.

"What is that?" I ask.

"It's a 'compass,'" he answers. I don't know the English word he's using, but the object seems to mean something to him. "It's mine. For my maps…to help guide… Oh, it doesn't matter now."

"But it does," I tell him, wishing I'd never brought him here or shown him these things. "What you used to do matters. You were…you are…very brave. To come here. I'm sure your family is proud of you."

He shakes his head, now holding the compass tightly in his hand near his chest. His knuckles turn white. "My family thinks I'm dead. That hurts them."

"But if they think you died honorably…" I start to argue.

"It still hurts them, Cai," he interrupts.

"There is only one way to never hurt someone," I tell him. "That is to never be in their life. I don't think that's what you would want for your family."

He's quiet again, still holding the compass. I wonder if he's understood what I said about his family and hope he hasn't taken offense. The sunlight moving from behind a cloud catches one of the gold rings in the pot, making it shine. Peeta picks it up.

"Why didn't you sell these rings?" he asks.

"They are yours," I admit, although he is right to believe that I considered selling them.

"Actually, they aren't," he tells me. "They're wedding rings."

"What do you mean?"

"If a man is married he wears one, and his wife wears another," Peeta explains. "Two of the men on my plane were married. These are their wedding rings."

"We could sell them now," I tell Peeta, but he sits up straighter and looks uncomfortable. "…if we want to sell them," I add.

"I'd…I'd like to keep them for now. Maybe I could bring them back to my friends' wives someday. I mean, I could give you money instead if I'm able to go home," he stammers.

"We should only sell them if we must," I tell him. "if it comes to that, you'll know what to do." He nods.

He murmurs something in English while looking from the ring in his hand to the one still in the pot and back again.

"What did you say?" I ask.

"I don't know whose?" He says. Then he points to the ring.

Leaning down I try to get him to look at me and ask, "don't know which man owned which ring?"

"Yes," he says with a frustrated sigh.

I don't know what to tell him, but soon the worried creases in Peeta's face start to soften and he says, "but they will know. I can go see one of their wives, and she'll know hers."

He seems comforted by this idea, and I imagine the wife of Peeta's dead friend receiving her husband's ring from him. It is a nice idea, but I also imagine how the ring could be used to buy food this winter and wonder if Peeta might see it as more useful for that purpose as time passes.

"Did you find bodies?" he asks, not looking at me.

"Yes, and we treated them like they were our own soldiers, Peeta. I promise," I reassure him.

He closes his eyes and leans forward. "I'm sure you did. Thank you," he says.

When Peeta is ready to look at the things in the pot again he focuses on a piece of a paper, which I think used to be a photograph. The image is almost completely worn away, but I assume that it must be a portrait of someone important to him because I found it in his uniform pocket. The photograph mostly fell apart when I removed it, but I laid in on a rock and let it dry that first night Peeta spent in the cave. What was left the next morning was the crumpled bit of paper he's now touching gently. Indeed, the person must be important to him.

"Was that a photograph?" I ask.

"Yes," he says.

"Who is it?"

"Delly."

His voice sounds a bit broken again. I want to believe he's just tired or that in time looking at these things will be good for him. Perhaps it will be, but right now he just seems so sad. Then again, I don't think he should have looked at them alone, and I'm glad I didn't simply give them to him and walk away.

"Who's Delly?" I ask, mimicking the pronunciation of the person's name.

He doesn't answer me, only looks at the bit of paper more, studying it. There's not much to see. A little of a face. Some hair that's wavy like his. I think the person is probably a woman. I've worried who she might be.

"Is she your wife?" I ask.

He lets out a breath.

"No, no. Delly and I aren't married. Not yet," he says before pausing briefly. "Delly for me is something like Gao is to you."

"So, you're promised to her?" I ask, my heart speeding up.

He nods. "Yes," he pauses again. "But I don't think I'll see her again. If I do get back home, she probably won't want to marry me."

"She would be foolish not to want to marry you," I tell him, feeling just as indignant for him as I do for me in my situation with Gao. I don't understand why people don't keep their promises, yet I feel a tug in my chest. There's a certain relief that Peeta is not married and that the woman he was supposed to marry is somebody who he might not marry. Still, I'm confused as to why any American girl wouldn't want to marry Peeta?

"I've changed," he explains. "Everything's changed." He looks down at his injured leg, and I wonder if he's referring to that. Surely she wouldn't fail to marry him due to a wound he received in war, especially one from which he's already recovering.

I replace the lid on the pot, but Peeta starts to take it off again.

"I think we should look at this later," I tell him.

He purses his lips and straightens his back against the tree as he looks off in the distance. "I just miss them. The men on my plane. I miss them, and I miss my family." He shrugs. "Nothing wrong with telling you that."

"No," I tell him. It's natural, after all. Men in battle form friendships that transcend even death. We women do understand these things. It's certainly normal for a man to miss his family during war and when so far from home, but I do wonder how much of the emotion I've just witnessed has to do with Delly.


	8. Confessions

Peeta  
Having spent a lot of time thinking about my own death recently I’ve concluded that my family loves me, but they don’t need me. No one does. If I die, my family and friends will grieve, but in time they will learn to get along without me. Delly will most likely meet someone else, marry him, and have a family. I can’t understand why I’m still here when men with wives and children are dead.  
My crewmates’ wedding rings remind me of a now bittersweet childhood memory. As a very young boy my father would sit me on his left knee while he worked in his study. I’d lean over the desk and grasp for papers and books he didn’t want me to touch. So he’d lay my hand on his left hand, and the shininess of his wedding band would suddenly interest me more than anything else. I’d manipulate his fingers and tug at the warm metal to try to remove the ring so I could play with it, my attempts keeping me occupied and amusing my father. My father’s wedding ring, both a source of happiness and frustration, fascinated me.   
My crewmates’ rings are so cold. The crash deprived them of their lives, and their wives and families will never touch or speak to them again. Perhaps they might see them again in heaven, but the idea of my friends being in heaven hasn’t comforted me much so far. It’s not comforting me now either. I want them here! Well, maybe not here. I want them to be alive and somewhere safe.   
“Where is safer than in the arms of God?” My father might gently remind me if he knew that I felt this way. Then he might say, “we certainly miss people we care for who have died, but I’d venture to say that if they are with God they don’t miss us.” I can almost hear him saying these things, not in his preacher voice but in his every day voice, “Death is not the end. Not if we believe.”  
I did believe. In fact, believing was not that hard for me before the war…before I knew I’d sent people to heaven or hell with the mere flip of a trigger. Their deaths were probably much like those of my crewmates’ suffocating, flaming deaths. Only rarely did anger so consume me that I hoped anyone would suffer. I often prayed they wouldn’t suffer, but I’d celebrate with the others when we hit our targets. Each successful bombing run brought us a tiny step closer to the end of the war, didn’t it?   
But when I finally felt safe I’d put my hands over my face, shutting out the world and all its cruelties. I’d wonder if there had been people in the buildings we’d just bombed. If I knew for sure there had been, I’d wonder how many people and who they were. Shaking from head to toe I’d ask God to forgive me. Sometimes this anguish would start before I’d even left the plane, particularly if the bombardier and I had switched places, making me the one who actually dropped the bombs.   
The war has to end. We have to win it, but I won’t have more blood on my hands than necessary. Cai’s family has prolonged my life by sharing their limited supplies of food with me and sheltering me. I’ve little doubt that I would be dead by now without them, and the thought of endangering them further horrifies me. So, I know what I must do. Leave. The risks don’t matter. The question that remains is whether to tell Cai goodbye or just leave without warning. Neither will be easy for us because we’ve grown so attached to one another.  
I close my eyes and try to think of a way to tell her. Explaining all these reasons and rationales in Chinese will be impossible for me if she doesn’t understand right away. What if she’s upset? How will I comfort her? Then again, maybe she’ll care less than I think she will.   
I ball my fists in frustration, desperately needing something to do! Something to make me stop thinking so much. Sitting still for this long with nothing productive to occupy your mind would drive a man to drink!  
“Peeta?” a voice says to me.   
It’s hers, but I wasn’t expecting her. A smile breaks across my face unwittingly when I look up to see Cai crawling over to sit beside me.   
“Gao went to the landlord’s house today to discuss the harvest. He brought something back,” she says.   
She shows me a book, a well-worn one. I take it in my hands eagerly but am disappointed when I realize it’s in Mandarin. Of course, it would be in Mandarin. I’m in China. The title reads “A Child’s Book of Wisdom.”   
“This is Min’s favorite book. Mine too. But our landlord lets us borrow it for Min. He thinks she is good luck.”  
“Oh?” I ask. “Why’s Min good luck?”  
“Well, she won the water buffalo. And she was born on the eighth day of the eighth month.”   
I turn my head curiously. “A holiday?” I ask referring to the date.  
“No, eights are just lucky.” Cai says.   
“When were you born?” I ask.   
“The eighth day of the fifth month.”   
She’s sitting close to me now, close enough that I can feel her clothes touch my hand but not feel her body.   
“Then you’re lucky too,” I say softly.   
“A little,” she says as she lowers her gaze to the book. An uncomfortable minute passes before she starts speaking again. “I can read but not that well. This book is hard for me. Maybe together we could read it.”  
Shaking my head, I chuckle a bit. “Cai, do you really think I can read a book in Mandarin that you can’t?”  
“No,” she says, her face suddenly stern. “I think there will be characters you know that I don’t, and I think there will be some that I know that you don’t. We can learn to read it together.”  
“Why?” I ask.   
Her expression falls flat as she takes the book out of my arms.  
“I’ll just do this with Min,” she says. “We don’t need help.”  
The muscles of her face tighten, and she starts to crawl to the cave entrance.   
“Wait,” I say. “I don’t understand.”  
“I thought you liked books,” she says, her voice laced with anger. Her sandaled feet scrape frantically against the stony ground as she tries to leave as quickly as she can.   
“I do. I love books!” My heart beats faster, and my stomach lurches. I don’t want her to leave. “I want to read it,” I tell her. “…with you.”  
She turns her head to look at me, her eyes narrowing.   
“You’ll only laugh at me,” she says. “No, I’ll just read what I can to my sister.”   
“No, Cai. If I can help you then I will,” I explain desperately. “Please. Let’s look at the book together.”   
“Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back,” she says.  
“What?” I ask, puzzled by such an odd statement.   
“It’s in the book. ‘Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.’”   
“I probably couldn’t have read that,” I tell her.   
“My father used to read from this book to us sometimes. He liked that one.”   
She crawls back to me, sits down, and opens the book. Then she slides closer to me so we actually touch slightly. I’m surprised at how quickly I’ve been forgiven.  
“I like this,” she says, pointing out a section of the book that’s illustrated with pictures of children carrying beautiful decorations that look like dragons. Her eyes light up.  
“Um…it’s beautiful.” Distracted by her proximity I try to cover my feelings with curiosity. “How many books have you read?” I ask.  
“This one and four others,” she answers. “My father also wrote characters for me so I could learn more. He said the five books our landlord has are good for learning.”  
I raise my head to meet her eyes, wondering what it would be like to have read only five books in your whole life and to not feel like you could read those very well.   
“Why? How many have you read?” She asks.  
She stares at me with a curious expression when I don’t answer.   
“Many then?” she asks.  
“Yes”  
“How many?”   
I shrug.   
“I don’t know. Hundreds?” I guess, though I suspect the number is actually in the thousands if small books count, but there’s no reason to point out the differences in our opportunities any more than necessary.  
Her eyes widen, “where do they all come from?”   
“We have some at home. There were more at school. There’s a whole building for them in town. Anyone can borrow one from the city there. We have some at church.”  
“So, everywhere,” Cai says, still looking amazed.   
“I think you must like books as much as I do,” I say with a smile.  
“Maybe I do,” she admits.   
We settle even closer together with the light from the cave entrance falling on the pages of the book, which we have propped up on her knees and my good knee. My broken leg is outstretched as usual. Cai reads whole sections, or perhaps she has some of them memorized. Either way, they sound poetic and beautiful. In the story section she can read almost everything but wrinkles her forehead in frustration when she can’t. I’m little help, but I try. Once when I actually do know a character she doesn’t she tells me how much I’ve helped her.   
“I can’t believe you know that. I don’t know any English except ‘Katniss’ and ‘hello,’” she says.  
“And you say both very well,” I tell her.   
“But I can’t read them!” She points out. “What are your favorite books, since you’ve read so many?”   
I tell her about a few of them as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.  
///  
There’s a loud clatter, and I open my eyes to light emanating from a lantern held up close to my face. I back up instinctively, hitting the cave wall. Cai, who must have been leaning on my shoulder falls forward and makes a little noise, catching herself before she hits the cave floor. Has she been asleep? I assume that I have been. Her hand is laying on mine, and I quickly pull it away.  
“What are you doing?” Gao says angrily.   
Not knowing which one of us he’s talking to or where he’s going with this I stay quiet and look questioningly at Cai.   
“Reading,” she answers, and clears her throat.   
“In the dark? You never came home. We were worried,” Gao tells her. “I should have known you’d be with him.”   
Cai’s eyes look heavy. How long were we sleeping?  
“No need to worry. I’m not hurt or sick,” she says.  
“Did he make you stay here?” Gao asks, ignoring her and glowering at me. Then he looks us up and down suspiciously.  
“Of course not!” Cai says, now getting angry herself. She starts to move away from me, but Gao throws an open hand in the air in front of her, making it clear he prefers for her to stay where she is. Cai complies, reluctantly. She and Gao do have an interesting relationship.  
“I don’t like you out here at night,” Gao tells her. “It’s not safe.”  
“No less safe than during the day,” she answers as she crosses her arms over her chest defiantly.  
“Maybe that’s not safe then either,” he says, shaking the lantern just a little in his tight fist so that it throws wider shadows on the cave wall.   
“What do you have to say?” he yells in my direction.  
“We were reading this book.” I point to the book where it’s fallen between us.   
He gives me another suspicious glare.   
“Don’t touch my…my...Don’t touch Cai,” he finishes and looks down at the hands that had been joined when we woke up.   
I back up all the way against the wall, wishing I could disappear for both her sake and mine.  
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, lowering his voice a little, a slight desperation evident. He’s holding back. I’m surprised he hasn’t resorted to violence yet.  
“I know,” I agree, lowering my voice also in the hopes it will help calm him. If I’d found Delly sleeping next to another man back home I’d have been angry. Worse yet, if I’d had a sister and found her in the same position I don’t know what I would have done. Gao doesn’t strike me as a man in full control sometimes, as if he’s confused about some of his feelings. Confusion can lead to fear which easily leads to violence. He takes a step closer to me. In a fight right now, I’ll lose.   
“Gao, you don’t have to worry,” Cai says.   
Yes, that’s what Gao is. He’s worried. Worried I’ll hurt her or take advantage of her. Maybe he believes I already have.  
“We were just reading. Peeta’s telling the truth. I brought the book to him,” she explains. “We fell asleep reading it.”   
Gao backs up and turns to look at her, “I think he’s a good man, Cai, but he’s still a man. And not sick like he was before,” Gao continues. The lantern’s still, and Gao’s lowered his voice. I actually sympathize with him. He doesn’t know my intentions, and the truth is that I’m very attracted to Cai. Even though he doesn’t spend much time with us he’d have to be blind not to notice that. “I think you should go outside,” he tells Cai.   
Cai glances at me, fear in her eyes, which makes me shudder. Does she know what’s coming next? Then without a word she leaves us there alone. Gao’s eyes bore into mine. He looks me over again, then around the cave. Clearly he knows I’m no match for him in a fight because he keeps giving away his advantages. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t in fear for my life. At any moment he might drag me out of the cave and beat me to death, or worse. I’m not sure whether to deny any romance with Cai or if bringing up the topic at all might give him more evidence of my guilt. Besides, don’t I think of Cai in that way even if I haven’t tried to act on those feelings? My denials probably wouldn’t sound very genuine.  
“I don’t know how you do things where you come from, but you…” he sighs loudly before continuing. “You and her being out here like this is enough to…to…”  
I nod my head. “It’s like that where I come from,” I tell him.  
“So, I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he says, the anger starting to rise in his voice again. “I won’t give you over to our enemies, Peeta, but I won’t let you cause trouble here either.”   
“I understand,” I tell him.  
Gao suddenly starts to back out of the cave, watching me the whole time. I hear his voice rise again as he addresses Cai outside. He’s asking her questions and she’s answering “no” loudly, probably denying anything illicit happening between us. As their voices grow fainter I settle into the dark cave for whatever is left of the night and think about Gao’s protectiveness. He does love Cai. I’m just not sure he loves her the way a husband should love a wife.   
Dawn comes quicker than I expect, which means Cai spent most of the night in the cave with me. Daylight hours pass. Eventually I try to read the book, which in the chaos was left with me. But that distraction barely diminishes the sting of guilt. I’ve gotten Cai into trouble with her family. Maybe she got herself into trouble as well, but if I wasn’t here none of it would have happened. It’s yet another way I endanger her, and ultimately myself.   
I’m starting to become desperately hungry when I hear someone removing the rocks we usually stack at the entrance of the cave. Min crawls inside moments later. She gives me a half smile and greets me.   
“There are some carrots with the rice today,” she tells me. Then she turns to leave.   
“Wait. Min?”   
“Yes?” She answers, turning back to me.   
“How? What? I just…”  
“Do you want to know how Cai is?” she asks.  
I nod.  
“She’s fine. A little sad. I suppose you are also.”  
I say nothing, not knowing how Min might respond. Of course, I am sad.   
“How angry is Gao?” I ask, hoping that Min might be sympathetic with me. She’s always been my defender, even when Cai was ready to let me die.   
“Angry. It will pass, but he’s definitely angry.”  
I want to ask if I’ll see Cai again, but I don’t want Min to tell Gao I asked that question. So, I don’t.   
“You’ll be bringing food then? Or should I try to go out and get it? I’m walking a little better,” I offer.  
“Probably best not to go far from the cave unless one of us tells you it’s safe. I don’t know who will bring your food. Cai told me to do it today.”  
“Oh,” I say quietly.   
I suspect Cai either didn’t want to see me or didn’t think it would be a good idea.   
“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow,” Min says.   
I don’t get the impression that they’re going to stop feeding me, but Min certainly isn’t her gregarious self. After she’s gone I think of the book, which is still sitting beside me. They’ll have to return it, so I know someone will come back here eventually. I wrap my arm around the book in the dark. After all, it’s Cai’s favorite.


	9. Revelations

Cai

"Min, you have to help me with Peeta," I plead, trying to convince my sister to take Peeta's food to him.

"No. Peeta's your responsibility. I have enough work of my own to do."

Min pulls the rope tied around the water buffalo, and the animal takes a few lazy steps.

"But Gao doesn't want me around Peeta," I tell her.

"That's not true. If that were true then Gao would be asking me to take care of Peeta, and he's not. You are. So why are you?" she asks.

Not sure how to answer, I just sigh in frustration. Why can't my sister just understand without me having to explain!

"I just feel uncomfortable," I tell her.

She cocks her head to the side and narrows her eyes suspiciously.

"You said he didn't hurt you. That nothing happened. That you just feel asleep…"

"And that's true," I quickly add.

"Then why would you not want to see him?"

Exasperated, I try to explain, hoping she'll understand. She has as much to lose as I do, but she doesn't see that yet. "I want Gao to marry me! I don't want him to think I'd rather be with Peeta. He seems upset when I'm with Peeta, like he's jealous," I tell her.

"Should he be?" Min asks. "Because you do act kind of strange around Peeta. You laugh and smile more. It's very pleasant, actually."

"Min!" I yell, brining my hands up to my hips and stamping my foot. "What difference does that make? I'm supposed to marry Gao. There are reasons for that. You don't know what you are talking about."

"I know you don't act that way around Gao."

She's making me almost as uncomfortable as going to the cave might.

"Gao's not going to marry you, Cai. I'm just telling you the truth. He's got other ideas."

"And you know this how?" I ask her.

"You'll have to talk to Gao about that."

The water buffalo swishes her tail at a fly and shakes her head in complaint that Min isn't moving along to the place where she grazes.

"Maybe I will talk to Gao," I say.

"You should," Min says, raising her eyebrows and giving me a curt nod. Then she walks away, the water buffalo trailing behind her.

/

It's midafternoon before I go to the cave, bringing Peeta all the food I can spare to try to make up for not taking care of him the way I should. Stopping outside the cave I try to gather my courage. Why am I so afraid to see this man who has become so familiar to me? What difference does falling asleep beside him with a book make?

The sound of a voice startles me. I nearly drop the bowls of food I'm carrying, one landing precariously in the crook of my arm. The voice sounds distressed, but I can't make out any of the words. Who could Peeta be talking to out here? Looking around, I don't see anyone else nearby. My heart skips a beat when I consider that a neighbor might have found Peeta and that he could be trying to convince the neighbor not to betray him to the enemy. If that's the case, Peeta needs my help. I quickly drop to my knees and crawl into the cave. I won't abandon him. Not again.

There's a shuffling sound coming from deeper inside the cave. The mumbling continues, and fear rises in me as I round the corner that will allow me to see Peeta and whoever is here with him. I realize the words are ones that I can't understand, except for one, "Cai." He says it twice, both times as if he's desperately calling out to me. I'm not even sure the other words are words, but the sounds of suffering are unmistakable. The words he speaks must be English. Peeta's lying in his usual sleeping place, and he's talking in his sleep. His fingers claw into the stony ground, his nails digging into the fine layer of dust that covers it. His head shakes back and forth once before he starts to mumble again. He's dreaming but appears frightened or in pain in the midst of his dream. Should I wake him, or will that only make the nightmare worse? Some say letting the soul continue on its journey in a dream until it naturally finds its way back is best, but seeing Peeta this way frightens me.

Not thinking much about the consequences I crawl closer and lean over him. My hands hover just above his body as I try to decide whether to wake him. Suddenly I'm hit with the irresistible longing to wrap my arms around his shoulders instead. As if they possessed a will of their own, my arms do just that. My face is suddenly resting at his cheek. My knees painfully scrape against the cave floor, but I don't care. I do lower myself onto my hip to relieve them, though. I'm lying there holding Peeta a moment later when he awakens with a gasp, immediately silent and frozen next to me. I've closed my eyes, but I can feel his head turn. He hasn't shaved in some time, and the friction of his cheek rubbing against mine causes me to lower my head to the crook of his neck. My change in position also means I don't have to look at him yet, eyes open or not. Bringing my hands to one side and drawing my knees up, I lie like a small child as he speaks to me.

"Cai, you're here," he says. He reaches his hand to touch my face, as if to check that I am real. Maybe he didn't think he would be seeing me again so soon. If I'd had my way he wouldn't be.

"You were dreaming," I whisper. "What were you dreaming about?"

He sighs heavily, his chest raising my hands a little and then dropping them back down.

"Oh. Nothing," he says.

"You were talking," I tell him. "And you sounded upset."

"It was a bad dream," he says.

"Oh. What was it about?" I ask, still too curious to let the issue go. The dream couldn't have been about the plane crash if he said my name.

He hesitates for a moment. "It was about bad things happening," he answers vaguely.

"Gao says that bad things are happening."

"Gao's right," Peeta answers, his voice catching at the end of the statement.

"How is Gao? Is he still angry? You'd better sit up, Cai. It's not that I don't want you there, but it might not be…"

"I know. I know," I tell him, raising one hand and patting his chest in the hopes that he'll stop talking. I don't want to hear his explanations as to why I shouldn't be lying here. Reveling in the feel of him near me a moment longer I brush my hair back off my face, but it falls again. Then Peeta brushes it back for me, his fingers lingering longer than necessary against my skin.

"Maybe you shouldn't do that," I whisper.

"Probably not," he admits. Then he reaches for the hand resting on his chest and squeezes it.

"Gao hasn't said anything else about you. He does mention his fears. That the terrible things happening in the cities and other places will happen to us."

I feel Peeta shiver. He suddenly wraps his arm around me, which necessitates him turning a bit on his side to face me. Wide-eyed, I stare up at him as his eyes glisten with unshed tears.

"Is that what you dreamed of, Peeta?" He doesn't have to answer. I know already. "Is that why you said my name?"

Peeta gently brings my hand to his lips, pressing my folded fingers against them for a moment. I feel my whole body relax at the pleasantness of the affection. How does he know how to make me fade in this way? "I don't want to be the reason something bad happens to you," he explains. "That's why I'm going to leave tomorrow."

I pull my hand away, struggling to grasp what he's just said. Leave! He can't leave! The weakness of want that I felt a moment earlier leaves me, and I sit up with a start.

"I need you to tell me a little more about the nearest villages," he continues, sitting up beside me. "I'm going to have to steal a little food as I go, unfortunately. Not too much. I'll go from village to village, mostly at night."

"Peeta! You can't. You'll die," I tell him, my face dropping into my open hands once the terrible prediction leaves my mouth.

"Walking is getting easier," he assures me. "I'll spend most of the day resting and travel at night,"

"No! You'll be caught, or you'll starve. There's nothing here but farms and very small villages. There's nobody to help you. Even the Chinese soldiers are so far from here. Is this because we aren't treating you well?" I ask, desperately hoping my neglect of him hasn't brought on his desire to leave. "We can do better. We can –"

"No," he interrupts, "I can't believe how kind you and your family have been."

"Then it's all for nothing! You're going to throw your life away!" I say angrily, raising my gaze to meet his eyes. He's taken aback by my stern expression.

Peeta sighs heavily and looks away, "I just want you to be safe."

"I won't be safe either way, Peeta. This is my country. Listen to me. You'll never survive traveling so far. If it were possible we would have helped you to do it already."

He's not convinced he shouldn't leave. Not at all. He starts asking questions about the villages, questions I refuse to answer. Faster and faster he makes plans, and listening to him makes my head spin. Why won't he stop? Why does he insist on this plan that can only have one final outcome? I finally lean into him and lie my head helplessly against his shoulder, my body coming to rest against his side. My mind wanders to dark places. I'll never know what happens to him if he leaves. I won't be there to cradle him in my arms as I did the night his fever threatened to take him. He'll die alone.

He's going on about the villages and how sorry he'll be to have to steal food from anyone but that he must. An odd warm feeling comes over me, a stirring inside that's familiar in Peeta's presence but so much stronger than it has ever been. Usually I simply ignore it, but I won't this time. I'm convinced of what I must do. I know how, after all. Gao showed me.

In one motion I sit up straighter, turn to face Peeta and lean toward him. Not giving him much time to back away I press my lips against his forcefully and feel his whole body stiffen with surprise. He takes in a sharp breath through his nose, out of shock, I believe. Then his lips begin to move softly. They part slightly, opening my lips with them. I turn my head, allowing the kiss to deepen as his tongue finds mine. I'm startled by the newness of the feelings he's igniting. The stirring inside me grows. Instead of wanting to suppress it out of fear as I have before, I want it to rise and continue. But where will it stop?

Haven't I felt some of this alone at night when I thought of him before sleeping? But with him right here before me everything is so much more intense, and before I didn't know how to imagine his tongue gently stroking mine. Maybe there are other things I've never imagined. His hands hover at my sides, and I want him to touch me. He doesn't. Instead, he keeps kissing me. A soft groan escapes him, different from the ones I heard when he was in pain, but no less primal. His hands land on my upper arms, then trail down my sides to my hips, embracing me with an energy I wasn't expecting when longing for his touch. I feel the need to move, my body screaming for me to move. Closer to him? Is that what it wants? I inch closer, and Peeta leans back in response before pulling away from our kiss with a gasp.

"Cai, we have to stop," he pants, turning away slightly and seeming embarrassed.

"Did I do it wrong?" I ask him.

Even though he's turned to the side a bit now, I can see him squeeze his eyes shut. "No," he says, still panting. "No. You did it right."

"Then why did you stop?" I ask.

He doesn't answer. He's concentrating. I settle down close to him and take his hand in mine.

"It'd be easier for me if you didn't touch me right now," he whispers gently.

"Why, Peeta?" I ask, mimicking his tone.

"It would just help me. Just for now," he says. The gentleness in his voice soothes my fears. He's not angry, but he won't meet my eyes. "Just, talk about the weather or something," he suggests.

"I'll do better than that. I'll get your food," I offer, crawling up to the cave's entrance to retrieve the bowls of rice, vegetables, and soup. Peeta visibly relaxes as I move away, and I wonder again if I did the kissing wrong. When I return Peeta gives me a crooked smile, his blue eyes sparkling. To break the tension now between us I begin to tell him what's been happening in the farm since we last spoke. Then he starts telling me about another of his favorite books. It takes place on a farm in America. I listen as he tries to find the right words to explain the story accurately. His foreign yet familiar voice lulls me into thinking of our kiss and how it made me feel.

"There's extra food today," I tell him, pointing to a small bowl of soup I've brought.

"Really? Extra? I thought there might be less lately."

Guilt squeezes my heart within my chest. I've neglected brining him what he needs out of my own fear, and I know it.

"Have you had enough water?" I ask.

"Just ran out this morning," he answers. Does Peeta suspect I've been avoiding him?

"Thank you for waking me," he says.

"I'm glad that helped but sad you had those dreams. They won't come true."

"How do you know?" He asks, taking the last bite of his rice and reaching for the soup as he waits for my explanation.

"Because I'm not afraid," I whisper. "I'll do what I must to survive."

Peeta shakes his head, the crooked smile returning. I'm not sure what he's thinking.

"Do you still want to leave?" I ask him, no longer able to suppress my desire to know what his plans might be.

"Cai, I never wanted to leave," is his only reply.

 

[AN: Speical thanks to Loueze who continues to provide very valuable feedback as "plot advisor" and friend. I could not write without her!]


	10. Plans

"You can also do it with your feet," she says, suddenly startling me from the memorizing rhythm of swinging the bunch of rice plants over my shoulder and against the bamboo rack. The sound of the food falling fills me with the hope of living. I've never lived so close to death, nor felt more alive than in the time I've spent with Cai's family. But what seems to make me feel most alive is Cai, and I can't stop thinking about her.

"You can do what with your feet?" I ask.

"Thresh rice," Cai giggles.

I wrinkle my nose and shake my head before swinging another bunch of rice over my shoulder and onto the threshing rack. Cai follows, much more effectively threshing her bunch of plants despite her smaller size. Years of practice, I suppose.

"But this way is better?" I ask.

"We think so," she explains. "The rice tastes less like feet."

This time I'm the one who laughs.

Harvest is incredibly hard work for everyone. Trying to make myself as useful as possible creates challenges for me, but as my broken leg slowly heals I'm able to handle more and more of the workload. Leaving the cave involves some risk, but Gao has pointed out that the neighbors are so busy harvesting their own fields that they rarely visit during this time of year. My nightmares are a bit better, probably from the sheer exhaustion and better sleep that the long workdays bring me. I wear Cai's father's clothing. In fact, I've hidden my uniform with the items salvaged from the plane. My military life seems a million miles away, and I feel increasingly part of Cai's family as a substitute for my own. I don't know if they feel as bonded to me, but they are kind to me none-the-less.

I avoid being alone with Cai because it's simply too much of a risk. If Cai can act impulsively and end up kissing me then I know I'm capable of doing the same to her. Whether or not Cai truly understands the reasons for my cautiousness is something that worries me. I would hate to think I've made her feel badly about herself, but I don't want to "cause trouble" as Gao so eloquently put it when clarified the boundaries in the cave the night Cai and I accidently fell asleep together. Gao would certainly see the one kiss that Cai and I have shared as a breach of boundaries. It simply cannot happen again. It happens again in my mind, though. I've relived that kiss in my head a thousand times, expanding on what really happened when I'm alone in my dark cave with little to do but think of Cai. I don't think about Delly, a fact that makes me sad and guilty. My feelings for Cai are simply too strong and growing stronger. Delly is so far away and reminds me of everything I might never see again. I know I'm entertaining these thoughts of Cai, even encouraging them. God help me, I just can't seem to stop.

Lost in thoughts of our lips meeting again while I continue threshing the rice, I don't notice when Cai first yanks my arm.

"Peeta! Hide," she says.

"What? What is it?" I ask her, not immediately following her instructions. Then I hear voices and footsteps just outside the barn. One voice sounds like Gao's. The other is a woman's voice I can't identify.

"Hide!" Cai whispers frantically. I'm not sure where to hide in the barn, it's small and is basically one open space except for a small stall for the water buffalo. Cai grabs my wrist and pulls me to the stall. I'm surprised when she crouches down in the stall with me just before the door opens. I can finally understand Gao's voice clearly as he enters the barn.

"I just don't know how to get out of it. They are like my own family," I hear him say.

"But they aren't your family. I'm going to be your family," the woman's voice answers.

Cai puts her hand over her mouth.

"But I've lived with them since I was so young. I have to find a place for Cai. It wouldn't be fair for me to just abandon her, and I can't disrespect my father that way," Gao tells the woman.

"But you are willing to break from the plans he made for you. The problem is Cai," she says, her tone angry.

Cai bows her head. I want to comfort her, but I'm too afraid of making noise to move.

"But Cai needs a future, too. So does Min. Cai can't leave this farm. Her mother and sister need her," Gao explains.

"What does her mother say? The woman asks.

"She doesn't know," he answers. "I can't bring myself to tell her. She practically raised me."

"Does Cai know?" she asks.

"I think so, but I haven't actually told her."

The woman sighs. "Any prospects yet?" She asks.

"Our landlord suggested one of his servants. He says he's a good worker, and he grew up farming."

Cai looks up as her eyes widen and her face twists into an expression of pure grief.

"Our landlord says he will handle the negotiation if necessary," Gao continues. "We already checked with the matchmaker, and their birthdates are compatible."

"And your landlord is willing to let this man go?" the woman asks.

"He says he owes this servant a debt, and the man wants to go back to farming. So the landlord likes the idea."

Cai's breaths are coming in short pants. I can't tell if she's enraged or about to burst into tears, but it doesn't matter. Whatever the reaction, the cause is pain. No longer able to stand Cai's emotional breakdown, I reach for her hand and squeeze it as I give her the most sympathetic look I possibly can. How terrible for your fiancé to be planning to marry you off to someone else, and yet I can hear in everything Gao is saying that he cares about Cai and the rest of her family.

"If you believe that finding Cai a husband is the only way for us to be together then so be it. I just hope it doesn't take a long time," the woman tells him, her voice warmer now.

"I hope it won't, but I can't make her marry anybody. Cai has a mind of her own," Gao points out.

Cai's face hardens as if she is planning at this very moment exactly how she's going to demonstrate that she has a mind of her own.

"Come here," Gao says. Shuffling sounds follow, along with a laugh from the girl. I wonder what's going to happen next. Hopefully nothing else because I doubt Cai can take much more of this.

/

As soon as the barn door closes Cai falls into my arms.

"I'm so sorry," I tell her, but her hands are balled into fists, and she shakes with what I believe is rage.

"How could he?" she questions through clenched teeth as she presses her forearms against my chest. "I'm going to tell him to…"

"No, no. Not yet. Don't talk to him yet. Calm down first," I warn her, gently pulling her into a tighter embrace. She allows it. "I'm so sorry," I repeat, smoothing her raven-colored hair with my hand as she rests her cheek on my chest. Cai wears her hair up, but it has been steadily falling out of its neat arrangement as we threshed the rice.

"I hadn't given up," she admits. "Up until today I still thought Gao and I would get married someday." She talks about the end of this belief with grief, similar to how people talk about the death of a loved one.

"But he said he can't force you to marry anyone else. Is that true?"

"Yes," Cai explains. "But what else can I do but marry who he finds for me? Gao's going to leave us, Peeta. I can't run this farm with only Min to help me." She pauses, then places her open hand on my shoulder, nudging the sore muscles there unwittingly. "And I'm going to miss Gao. I thought I'd spend my life with him," she adds.

I imagine these are difficult admissions for her given Gao's rejection.

"Do you love him?" I ask hesitantly.

"Love him," she repeats slowly. "I don't know, Peeta. I'm supposed to marry him. I assumed I would feel what I should feel for him. If that is love, then the answer is 'yes.'"

"But do you love him now. Do you think you'll miss him because you love him or because he's more like a brother to you?" I ask, wondering if these questions are going to confuse her even more. Maybe I should stop talking.

"I don't know," she answers. "I want to marry him."

"But…why do you want to marry him?"

She looks up at me, blinking as she does.

"Do you like to be around him? Do you think of him often when he's not with you?" I ask her.

She opens her mouth as if to speak and then shakes her head instead.

"I'm not sure. Is that how you feel about Delly?" she asks.

"I did," I tell her. "But now thinking of Delly makes me sad. She probably believes I'm dead. She might be with someone else, and I don't want to think about that."

I realize what I've said too late, but perhaps Cai and I can take comfort in the fact that our predicaments do have some similarities.

"Do you like the way Gao looks?" I ask her, feeling uncomfortable with the question but believing that attraction is an important factor also.

Cai shrugs. "Yes, but that's not why I want to marry him. I believe we are bound together, destined to be together. How I feel doesn't matter as much as knowing he is meant for me. When my father chose him for me and his father chose me for him it was for the good of both of us and our families."

I sigh.

"So what will you do now?" I ask.

Cai's brow furrows, and she looks away.

"I suppose I will meet my future husband."

A pang of jealousy twists inside me, and then my mind starts tumbling around the idea of what Cai means to me and what I might mean to her. It's not as if I've never considered that before, but the prospect of Cai marrying a man she's obviously never met makes the internal struggle over my feelings for her all the more real. I've been jealous of Gao, but at least she and Gao had history together. This new man seems like an outsider, an interloper. Then the ridiculousness of viewing a Chinese farmer who might want to marry Cai as an outsider hits me. I'm the outsider, after all.

"What about this?" I ask her, leaning her back against my arm so I can see her face again. "What is this?" I point to her and then to me a few times.

She casts her eyes downward as if she's ashamed. "I don't know, Peeta. Do you think of this as love?" She asks me.

I'm stunned by her response, that she entertains such an idea at all.

Yes, I think this might be love, I tell myself.

To Cai I only answer, "I'm not sure, but it must be something."

"Do you think I'll feel this way about my husband?" she asks, a longing in her voice.

The muscles of my face tense into a pained expression.

"I hope so," I whisper. "Because I want you to be with someone you love."


	11. Fa

Once I recovered from the shock of overhearing Gao talking to the woman he planned to marry in the barn I confronted him, but I found the confrontation similar to others Gao and I had had. It changed nothing. Gao simply didn't want to marry me. Whether the reason was because he disliked how marriages are often arranged or because he wanted to marry someone else mattered less than I imagined it would in the end, and I was very sure this was the end for Gao and me. So I tried to bolster myself in the face of Gao's rejection and turn my attention toward Fa, the servant who would likely become my husband.

Even now as I walk with Gao to the landlord's house to meet Fa I find myself whispering Fa's name, letting it roll off my tongue as I wonder what it will mean to me in the coming months and years. What does Fa look like? Will he be a good husband? How long will it take for him to seem like someone I know well rather than a stranger? Will he be fiery like Gao or serene like Peeta? What will it be like to become his wife?

Gao hasn't met Fa either, but he says he trusts our landlord that Fa will be a suitable partner for me. I'm not sure why he thinks our landlord would care if I found a suitable partner, but I want to be optimistic about the match. I shuffle past the threshold as we enter the house, trying to walk in an attractive way and not like the farm-girl I am. I bow my head respectfully to the landlord, looking down toward my feet. Wanting to appear as attractive as I can to Fa, I've worn the finest clothes in our home, arranged my hair in an intricate braid wrapped around the crown of my head, and dowsed myself with sweet smelling fragrances that once belonged to my mother. They are very old, but they still smell nice.

The landlord's house has real walls and several other servants besides Fa. One of them leads us into a small room with a few chairs. I sit down, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in my dressy clothes. Folding one hand over the other nervously, I notice how rough my skin has become from the work of harvest. I never thought Gao minded such things, and he certainly understood them well. I wonder if I should have at least done something to try to soften my hands before meeting Fa. A man serving in the home of a rich landowner with beautiful daughters would be used to being around women far more polished and refined than I am.

Thankfully my first meeting with Fa will be very different than my first meeting with Gao, who was brought to our house by his father while I was playing in the dirt. My hair was matted and dusty then, a testament to a long day of work followed by a bit of play. Gao had stared at my small form for a moment, then turned away. He probably knew more about what was happening than I did, having said "goodbye" to his family before leaving his home. As I think of Gao's vacant eyes that day and how he looked up at his father pleadingly, I feel a twinge in the pit of my stomach. Gao had never wanted to live with us. He especially missed his mother and wanted to go home to her. While I hate what Gao has done to me, I cannot hate Gao. Suddenly I'm grateful for being spared the pain of having to say "goodbye" to my mother and Min, leaving them to an uncertain future. If this new match is successful, it could be the answer to our dilemma. This man could replace Gao in my life and family, and he might be far happier than Gao could ever be married to me.

This growing optimism is still new, though. Even yesterday Peeta had to try to calm me after I became upset about the situation.

"Maybe Gao has found someone who you will like very much," he said. "Living with someone and sharing a life with them probably will make the two of you feel close."

But Peeta's smile didn't quite meet his eyes when he said it. He has talked to me about "love" before, and it's not the kind of love anyone could have for a stranger. Maybe I could learn to love Fa the way Peeta describes love given time. Even if I never love him, I might learn to live with him in harmony. Harmony is good. So is peace. Peace is a gift.

The kiss I shared with Peeta slowly comes to mind, and suddenly I feel about as far from peaceful as possible. A wave of heat washes over me. I've thought of that kiss so many times, each time more fondly than the last. The desire to kiss him again, to lie in his arms again, to feel his breath on my neck again…it's so strong. Peeta must not have similar yearnings for me. He's had many opportunities, and there's never been another kiss. I start to wring my hands, embarrassed at the thoughts running through my head while I sit here with Gao waiting to meet my future husband. I shake my head to try to shift my thoughts back to the present. Then I touch my hair to make sure I haven't disturbed it.

Before I can completely banish the kiss from my mind the landlord walks into the room followed by a man I assume is Fa. Fa is dressed in the modest clothing of a servant, but his clothing is nicer than Gao's. He is shorter than Gao, but Gao is considered quite tall. Fa looks older than me, but he does not appear to be an "old" man. His hair is a shiny black. Being older than me might mean he is wiser and will be more respected. I try to shift my lingering thoughts of kisses to Fa…his lips, his arms. It's not an easy task. I don't know Fa.

The landlord introduces us, and then he and Gao quickly recede to an adjacent room so Fa and I can talk privately as I've requested. There's an uncomfortable silence, and then Fa clears his throat.

"Why did you want to meet me?" he asks hesitantly, his expression unreadable.

"I wanted to find out more about you," I answer.

"You will, of course," he tells me. "If you are my wife."

"Of course."

I pause, not knowing what else to say. The moment is awkward, as if he believes it is a bit offensive that I wanted to meet him before the wedding.

"So, you've farmed before?" I ask him.

"My father was a farmer, and I grew up helping him," Fa explains.

"My father was also a farmer," I tell Fa. "He is dead now."

"Yes, I know," Fa says. "I remember him. He was a fine farmer. I handle the crop inventory."

"Oh," I say, impressed that Fa has been trusted with such a big responsibility for at least several years. "That is very good."

Fa smiles shyly. There is another pause. This time Fa takes the opportunity to stare deeply into my eyes.

"I have a younger sister and a mother," I say, my gaze falling on my hands again because I'm a bit uncomfortable that Fa seems to be looking right through me. "They wish to remain with us."

"So I've been told," Fa says softly. "They may until your sister is old enough to marry."

I nod. His answer is the best I could ask for.

"My mother," I begin, looking up at him again. "Did anyone talk to you about my mother?" Fa takes a small step toward me, perhaps to hear me better.

"I'm told she is not well sometimes," Fa answers. His tone tells me he understands what he is unwilling to put into words. I could not hope for a better answer than this one either.

"That's right. I'll need to take care of her."

"One should respect one's mother," Fa says.

"Will you miss living in a big house like this?" I ask him.

"I'll be with you on the farm. I won't miss this place," he answers, emphasizing the word "you."

Fa suddenly looks flushed. I wonder if he has feelings that stir inside him for me. The thought of it makes me shiver. I never even wondered about such things until recently.

"Your plot of land is the best on our landlord's property except for his private fields," Fa observes, his eyes suddenly darting down and away from mine.

"That's what my father used to say," I admit.

"Are you happy about the marriage?" Fa asks, suddenly steering the conversation to a more personal subject as if he can't help but do so. He takes yet another chance and fearlessly gazes into my eyes while he waits for an answer.

"It's a surprise," I tell him. "I was arranged to marry Gao."

"I know," Fa says.

"Are you happy about the marriage?" I ask, deciding that it is a fair question now that he's asked me.

"Yes," he says confidently. "Very happy."

Peeta said I might like Fa, and I think I do. I haven't asked the most dreaded question, though. I made a private vow to ask it even though Peeta would be very upset with me for asking.

"We do have one secret," I begin.

Fa's brow furrows.

"A secret?" He repeats.

"Yes, do you remember the plane crash on our land?" I ask him.

"Yes," Fa answers. "Everybody remembers that."

"There is something that most don't know about the plane crash."

Fa raises an eyebrow at me. "What is it?"

"There was a man who survived. He is a foreign soldier, an American," I explain, sighing from the relief of admitting the truth. "We have been hiding him."

Fa's mouth drops open.

"And he's still with you on your farm?" Fa asks.

"Yes."

"Who else knows?"

"Nobody outside of my family," I tell him. "We consider this man an ally of China, and that's why we've been hiding him."

Fa raises his hand and pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers, looking away as if very distressed.

"Will you allow him to stay after the wedding?" I ask Fa. "He is helpful on the farm. I…we believe he'll die if he tries to leave and find his people. They are so far away, and he doesn't know the area. It will be winter soon."

Even to my own ears my ramblings about Peeta sound a bit desperate and strange. I think I know why, but I hope Fa will not realize it.

Fa drops his hand to his side before he interrupts me.

"But he is a man, and you will be my wife. He can't stay in our home," Fa says.

"He doesn't stay in the house…."

"But he's a foreigner," Fa continues. "He should find his own people. He can't stay."

"I'm sure he will find a way back to his people eventually," I reassure Fa. My heart squeezes painfully at the thought of having to say "goodbye" to Peeta someday, and I continue to argue on Peeta's behalf. "For now he is our ally, and I believe it's important that we protect him."

Fa's face turns a different shade of red, and he raises his voice as he tells me, "That's not important. The answer is still 'no.'"

"I'm…I'm just saying that…"

"You should stop saying things," Fa tells me, taking a step back. "It was fine to ask me if the man could stay, but I have said 'no.' What you believe no longer matters. He must go."

I feel hot all over, and the tiny hairs on my arms suddenly stand on end.

"Then I won't marry you," I tell Fa angrily. The sentence comes out so fast it almost sounds like one long word.

"You won't marry me?" he asks skeptically. "You must marry me. What else will you do? Besides, our landlord promised."

"Promised what?"

"Promised that I could marry you. Didn't you know that?"

"No! Nobody told me! What is this? Some kind of trick?" I ask, feeling rage boil over at the thought of the landlord speaking for me.

Fa reclaims the step he'd taken backwards a moment earlier. He rolls his jaw intimidatingly.

"In my bet with the landlord he bet you because he knew I liked you," he explains. Then Fa lowers his voice, and his muscles seem to relax slightly. "I have always admired you from afar."

"He had no right to include me in a bet," I counter. "And you had no right to try to buy me that way."

"But didn't you hear me? I have always admired you. You're what I wanted. If you hadn't been promised to Gao and if I'd had the money for the bride's price, I'd have tried anyway."

"Stop! Stop!" I scream, angrier still at the thought of Fa trying to negotiate with my family for me. Then again, that is how it is often done. "Nobody will sell me. My mother would not have taken your money unless I wanted you."

"And why wouldn't you want me?" Fa asks, looking both hurt and confused. "I am a man who can help you. I can offer you things that even Gao cannot." Fa stares at me for a moment, apparently looking for something in my expression. He must not find it because a moment later he breaks away from our conversation and meets the landlord in the doorway. The landlord looks pale.

"I think this can be mended," the landlord says.

"No, it can't," I counter, crossing my arms across my chest and turning away from both of them. "It can never be mended."

Gao comes into the room and stands beside me. He touches my arm, and I shrug him away.

"I didn't know, Cai," he tells me.

I don't believe him. I don't believe any of them. I'm tired of people lying to me and trying to design my future for me. I won't let them anymore!

"You expect me to follow tradition, Gao," I lower my voice to a whisper. "You even expect me to accept being bought in what was probably some drunken bet because that's expedient, while you run off with a woman who inflames your passions."

The tips of Gao's ears turn bright red, and he looks away. I continue, speaking only to him and very quietly, "you tell me that you believe people should marry who they choose to marry, but that rule apparently doesn't apply to me. I hate you. I hate all of you."

Gao looks stunned. He grabs for my wrist and whirls me around, away from the prying eyes of Fa and the landlord.

"Stop this. We'll talk later," he says in a hasty warning.

"No, this is over," I tell him. "Let's go home."

/

The landlord sends word through a neighbor that he wants to speak to Gao in the evening.

"I won't change my mind," I tell Gao before he leaves.

He nods and says, "I know."

Then Gao reluctantly walks toward the landlord's house for a second time as I explain to my mother and Min what happened earlier. When Gao returns he doesn't volunteer any information about his meeting with the landlord. Finally I ask him what the landlord wanted.

"The landlord said Fa left and won't be coming back," he confides.

I lean forward over our dinner of rice and soup, truly surprised by hearing about Fa's departure. I wonder where he will go and what he will do.

"Since the deal to marry you and work this plot of land fell through, the landlord had to compensate Fa with a sum of money. Apparently they argued about how much money for some time. Then the landlord threw Fa out along with the largest sum of money he had requested. It was a great deal of money, Cai. I think the landlord wanted to be finished with the matter. One of the other servants said that they literally tossed Fa out of the gate."

My eyes widened at the thought of such a dramatic ending to the negotiations for a marriage with me.

"Cai, I think Fa truly did want to marry you but not force you into marriage. The other servants told me that he talked about you, particularly after you'd visited the house for some reason."

"I don't care. I will not be bartered for like an animal."

"Fa probably thought that was the only way he'd ever have a chance to marry you. He was basically enlisting the help of the landlord in negotiating his position with me and securing the landlord's permission to work the land with you as your husband. The landlord wouldn't have agreed to any of that if Fa had not won the bet. It's no different than the bet with the landlord that won us our water buffalo. If I hadn't bet with him, we'd have never been able to reasonably negotiate."

"But I'm not an animal, and I shouldn't be treated like one," I tell him.

"Of course you shouldn't be treated that way, and you are not property of any kind. But Fa saw this as an opportunity to try to get to marry you. It was that opportunity that Fa wanted, but he wanted you to want it also. Plus he wanted to work the land. That was important to him."

"I disagree all of that," I say smugly.

"And that's fine for you to disagree. I understand why you do. I am upset too, and I told the landlord so. The whole system is flawed. You know I think that, and the matter is settled now anyway. Fa can find some new opportunities with the money he has."

But suddenly I realize it's not settled. There's Peeta to consider, and I told Fa about Peeta. My heart starts to race as I begin explaining to Gao what I did.

"I told Fa about Peeta," I gasp. "I asked him if Peeta could stay on the farm after the wedding."

"Oh, I know," Gao says casually as he picks up some more rice with his chopsticks. "The landlord and I couldn't hear you and Fa talking until you started arguing, but Fa told the landlord about Peeta after you and I left. Fa thought he'd be angry, but the landlord says Peeta will probably be an asset if the Americans come to look for their soldiers someday. He says we might be rewarded for protecting Peeta. So the landlord says it's fine for Peeta to stay. It's Peeta's choice. "

"But what if Fa tells somebody about Peeta?" I ask.

"The landlord doesn't think he will," Gao explains. "He says he knows Fa well and that he would never betray us. Besides Fa has other matters to attend to, like finding a use for all that money."

Gao half smiles at me. Maybe he's proud that somebody thinks our farm and I are worth that much money even if he doesn't truly believe people should be bought and sold.

"What will I do now," I ask him.

"I don't know. We'll figure it out," he answers.

/

I bring Peeta his dinner and watch his facial expressions as I tell him what happened at the landlord's house. He's obviously shocked by all of it, but the first thing he says is, "how are you doing with all that?"

Peeta always knows what to say.

"I am doing well, but I don't know what will happen to me now," I admit. "Gao doesn't either. Maybe I should have been more understanding with Fa and the landlord, but I just couldn't imagine how they talked about me like that…about 'if I win I get to marry Cai and have her family's land to farm,'" I shudder at the thought of it.

Peeta opens his arms to me, and I go to him. He wraps me in a warm embrace and begins to play with my hair.

"Nobody should be treated that way," he says. "And if Fa thought that was the only way to have a chance to marry you then that's sad."

I think about what he's saying and then I ask him, "how did you end up promised to Delly?"

His muscles tense. They always do when I mention Delly.

"I asked her to be my wife. She said 'yes.'"

"And why didn't you marry? Did you ask her a long time ago, when you were too young?"

"No, I asked right before I left for the war. We could have married," he tells me.

"Then why didn't you?"

He pauses before answering.

"Our parents wanted us to wait, and I think we were a little scared something bad might happen."

"Something bad like what did happen?" I ask, referring to the plane crash.

"Yes," he says solemnly. "Or maybe that I'd be killed."

He tenses again. I can feel it in the muscles he's using to hold me.

"But you're still very much alive," I remind him.

"For the moment," he says.

I hate it when he talks as if he'll die.

"Do you think I could have loved Fa if I'd tried?" I ask Peeta.

Peeta chuckles a little.

"I think part of love is 'trying,' but not all of it. The trying part is probably loyalty."

"What's the rest," I ask.

"It's something that just happens to you. One day you just realize you love someone. My father does say love is work, though. It's doing things for the other person that you wouldn't do normally and putting the other person first."

"You're father sounds like a wise man," I tell Peeta.

"He is," Peeta says, a longing in his voice. He misses his family. He's told me.

"Peeta, can I ask you something?"

He smiles a crooked smile and squeezes my arm where he's holding it.

"You don't need to ask permission," he answers.

"How do you know how to speak any Chinese?" I ask. Peeta's Chinese is very far from perfect, but I think it must be unusual for someone from such a faraway place to know my language at all. We've never talked about how or why he learned Chinese. Maybe the army taught him?

"My grandparents taught me," he says. "My father speaks a little Chinese, but mostly my grandparents."

That is an answer I wasn't expecting.

"And how do they know Chinese?" I wonder aloud.

Peeta fidgets a little, and I assume I'm making him uncomfortable by resting in his arms this way. I start to get up, but he gently nudges me back down into his arms. Then he answers my question with a question.

"Cai, how do you really feel about people like me coming to your country?" His eyes search mine.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I mean, do you dislike it? I know some people here dislike it."

He's right. That's true.

"It depends on why they are here. I have no problem with you being here. You were trying to help us free ourselves from the Japanese," I answer.

"But what if I were here for a different reason?" He asks.

"Like what?"

Peeta takes a deep breath, and he begins stoking my hand with the fingers of his free hand. Why does he look so concerned?

"My grandfather is a doctor," he says. "He came to China as a young man and started working with other doctors trying to build a hospital. Then he met my grandmother. She was here in China also, as a missionary. A Christian missionary. Do you know what I mean?"

I nod. I do know.

"They got married," Peeta goes on. "My father was born, and they spent most of his childhood working here in China as missionaries. The hospital opened and helped many people. My father went to school in England part of the time, so he didn't learn as much Chinese as my grandparents."

"But why would they come here, and why did they stay here after the hospital was built?" I ask.

"There were treatments American doctors were using that my grandfather wanted to share with the Chinese. He learned from the Chinese, too. My grandfather has ideas American doctors find strange. He got them from Chinese doctors." Peeta pauses again for a moment. "And they wanted to tell the people they met here about their religion."

This seems to be what worries him, and I understand. There have been times when both Chinese and foreigners have been killed for being Christian. Maybe that's why Peeta looks worried.

"Did anybody try to hurt them?" I ask hesitantly.

He exhales slowly.

"Once," he says. "But that was a hard time for China anyway. It was when my father was a baby."

I nod and stop Peeta from rubbing my hand by interlacing our fingers.

"But they stayed after that?" I ask.

"Yes," he answers slowly.

"Why?"

"Because they thought they were supposed to stay," he says. "And there were people who wanted them to stay, just not everybody."

I don't quite understand what he means. How could a foreigner believe they were "supposed" to stay in a foreign land where people had tried to harm them? I can imagine having nowhere else to go, but I can't imagine staying by choice in such a situation.

"Supposed to stay in a place where people tried to harm them?"

"Well, it was just one time. Most of the time life here was peaceful for my grandparents. They did good work, and people liked them."

He's saying reassuring things, but he seems a bit shaken.

"I have heard of their religion," I tell him. "There are Chinese who practice it also."

"There have been for a very long time," he confirms. "Just not very many of them."

"There is a book they read, isn't there?" I ask.

"Yes," he says. "That's right."

"Have you read it?" I ask.

"Yes, often," he says. He seems thoughtful and distant. Maybe all this makes him think of home too much? "I miss reading it," he adds.

"What's in it?"

"Different things. Stories. Poems. Songs. What Jesus taught," he says.

"So, you follow this religion, also? Like your grandparents?" I ask.

"I do, but I'm not brave like them. I'm not good like them," he stammers.

"I don't believe that. You are good to me, and I've told you before that I think you are brave."

He swallows hard.

"I try to understand God, but I don't," he says.

"Do Christians believe people can understand gods?" I ask him.

"Not completely. No," he admits.

I give him a sharp nod of my head.

"You are a person, Peeta."

"Christians do believe you can learn about God," he explains, "that the more you learn the more will be shown to you."

"Then maybe you can keep doing that without feeling like you have to understand everything at once" I tell him. He seems to cheer up a little. I think he should. His religion sounds like it's something important to him.

"Do you believe in God, Cai?" he asks me.

"No, not a god," I tell him. "But sometimes I feel like my father is nearby even though he is dead."

Peeta pulls me in tighter, perhaps sensing that talking about my father is hard for me.

"Sometimes I feel like God is watching over me," he tells me. "I thank God for you every day, Cai. I know I wouldn't be alive without you."

Peeta presses his lips into my hair for a moment, kissing me gently. Somehow I know he won't kiss me the way we kissed before right now, but I feel a warmth grow in my chest anyway. I'm not sure how Peeta thanks his God for me, but I believe that he does.


	12. Goner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta and Cai have a unmistakably romantic encounter; Gao starts making decisions without input from the rest of the family.

As the harvest winds down and cold weather begins to set in Cai and I spend less time in the fields, but we don't spend less time together. We prepare the rice for sale knowing that most of it will be sold by the landlord for his profit, not ours. Cai keeps careful records to make sure we keep all the rice we are entitled to keep. She admits that most years what's allowed isn't enough to comfortably make it through winter, but she acts grateful for it anyway. When I ask her why the landlord won't allow us to keep a little more, she doesn't answer.

"Does he have to pay high taxes or something? Can he not get by if he doesn't get this amount from us?" I ask.

"I don't know, Peeta. It doesn't seem that way, but Gao knows more about those things than I do."

"He shouldn't want us to starve," I tell her. "What good would that do?"

"There would be another family who would work the land if we did starve," Cai answers.

"But he knows this family is reliable. Besides, that's just wrong, Cai. He cares so little that he'd let us starve and replace us with another family just to make a little more money that he might not need?"

"You are starting to sound like Gao," she says.

"What does that mean?"

"Gao thinks everything should change. He says we should always get to choose who we marry, and he wants the rich people who own so much land to have to give some of it to people like us."

I listen, choosing not to comment on the internal affairs of a country where I'm not even a citizen. Cai has never known anything different than her way of life. I can say it makes no sense to me for her landlord to keep her family on the edge of starvation, but it's not my place to try to change anything. That's her place. Gao's place. The people of China's place. And yet I feel more a part of China every day and hope for peace in a more practical and urgent way than I would if I wasn't living here. My life back home differed so much from my life in China, its concerns so minor compared to starvation and political unrest.

"What are you thinking about?" Cai asks, taking a break from her figures long enough to stare at me with her beautiful dark eyes.

"Home," I whisper.

Her mouth tightens and she turns her head sympathetically.

She's so ready to accept me for who I am. Not everyone is, not even everyone on this farm. Feeling truly safe is only a distant memory, but I feel safest with Cai.

Looking down at the notes I took in English during the harvest, the two of us go back to translating them into Cai's record keeping system. She's smart. Smarter than most would give her credit for. Sometimes people in the army working in a faraway country will discount the native population's ability to contribute intellectually to the war effort even if they recognize their ability to fight for their land and people. They don't listen to them, which usually results in tragedy. Those of that mind-set would certainly discount this girl, saying she's just a weak woman. She's not. She's strong, probably much stronger than I am in many ways. I suspect Cai might discount herself sometimes, I decide to ask her a question.

"What do you think?"

I sneak a peek at her reaction to my question by raising my gaze a bit.

"About marriage customs and the land?" she asks, glancing up at me without giving the matter her full attention. "I'm not sure."

"Yes you are. You've obviously talked with Gao about it?"

She sits up straighter, as if surprised by my persistence. I mimic her actions as I wait for a response.

"I think we should have more control over the land, but something about taking the land away from the landlord bothers me. Maybe we should own it together somehow? Maybe someone should tell him how he is allowed to treat us so he can't be cruel," she says.

"Is he cruel, Cai?" I ask, suddenly concerned.

"Ours is not, but we've heard stories of cruelty."

"But you can leave if you want?" I ask.

"Yes, Peeta, but where would we go? Things are bad enough here where people actually care about us."

I nod.

"And marriage?" I ask, suddenly wondering if I'm invading her privacy by asking these questions. They are very personal questions, not that we don't talk about personal matters regularly.

"The last few months of my life have taught me people should choose who they marry," she begins, still not looking at me, "but I don't know how a person should do that. I never had to think about what to look for in a husband since one had already been chosen for me."

/

After completing the record keeping project, Cai moves on to cooking. The ingredients, while a complete mystery to me, make my eyes water as she stirs vegetables from the garden into them. When she's finished preparing the strong smelling food she pushes it into clay jars of various sizes with a large flat spoon. Then she covers the jars with lids. I wonder what she'll do with all this food. Honestly, eating it for meals doesn't appeal to me, and there's much more of it than we would normally eat at once. Will Cai be offended if I don't eat it? I know we have some plain carrots left, and maybe she'll let me…

"Peeta," Cai says as she pushes a shovel into my hands. "We need to dig the holes."

I must have a bewildered look on my face because she starts laughing at me. Then she proceeds to start digging a hole not far away with a second shovel. She points to the ground and laughs again.

"Dig one there, not too deep," she says.

We keep digging holes in the ground until Cai stops, arches her back to stretch and smiles at me. My arms ache, but I'm intrigued with all the pride she seems to have in her work. She walks back over to the jars, lifts one from the ground, brings it over one of the freshly dug holes and lowers it gently. Then she turns to me.

"You've never done this before, have you," she says, a knowing smirk on her face.

"No," I answer defensively.

She takes the shovel from my hands and heaps some dirt over top of the jar, burying it in the ground.

"In a few months you'll be very glad for these jars of food," she says.

"I have no doubt of that," I answer, still doubting a bit.

"Really," she says. "You will."

Cai buries another jar, and I help her.

This has to be some kind of "refrigeration" system, though the temperature certainly wouldn't be constant.

"Winter is about survival. Surviving cold and hunger," she goes on. "Make sure you drink enough. Just because you can't eat as much as you did before doesn't mean you can stop drinking. The water will freeze. I'll show you how to make sure you have plenty to drink and how to thaw it."

I nod. I'd expected changes with winter, of course.

By the time we bury the fourth jar we've developed a system. Cai places the jar carefully and holds it while I shovel the dirt in over the lid and her arms. She shakes her arms free of the dust when the jar is sitting firmly while I continue the shoveling.

"We'll ration the rice and other food so we'll have enough until spring," she says. "We do it every year, and it works. But I won't lie to you. It's hard to keep yourself from eating more than you should. You'll be hungry, especially since you've never been hungry like that before."

She sounds sad, or apologetic. I can't tell which. She shouldn't be either.

"I understand," I tell her.

When the last jar is buried, Cai finds rocks heavy enough not to be kicked away but light enough to easily carry and marks the ground where the food is buried.

/

As the temperature drops the family moves most of their activities indoors, a place I'm not invited. I haven't discovered why I'm not allowed in the house, but I think it has something to do with Cai's mother. I rarely see her. She didn't work on the harvest, record work, or food preservation. Gao tends to direct my attention away from the house, giving me a glare whenever he sees me look over toward it.

The cave becomes unbearably cold as the weeks go on. I think of building a fire but haven't resorted to that yet. My "living area" in the cave is a small space, and I'm not fond of fire. Cai brings me my food in the cave again since we aren't outside often anymore. Usually she stays in the frigid cave with me for a while after I've eaten for no apparent reason other than to talk and snuggle close to me to keep me warm.

It's just to keep me warm. She must feel badly that I'm not invited in the house. Maybe she wishes I could be.

All during the harvest, Gao watched us carefully, but he did not interfere with Cai and me as we worked beside each other. Cai enjoyed taking me under her wing and teaching me the skills needed to help. Gao's role was often supervisory. He made sure everything was going smoothly and then joined the harvest effort at the weakest link of "production." While harvest was low-tech in that we did everything by hand, it was not without a system meant to bring us success. Gao spent so much time at the end of harvest trading, negotiating, and visiting other farmers that he was seldom nearby during the day. Cai and I only grew closer during his absence.

Despite Gao's promises to make sure Cai and I maintained the boundaries he so eloquently clarified the night we fell asleep reading a book, he never did much to keep us from spending time together. Now that the weather is getting cold I see Gao less than ever. For my part, I never discourage Cai from coming to see me in the cave or tell her she shouldn't stay so long when she does. Though we are playing with fire, our interactions remain mostly innocent.

After the rationing begins in earnest I'm very hungry even when I've just finished eating. Cai tried to make the whole process very gradual for me but having so little food to eat is still difficult. Sometimes I can't believe they live this way much of the year and have all their lives.

I become quieter after meals, and my stomach hurts. One evening Cai pushes my shoulder after we eat, encouraging me to lie down. Then she places her hand over the place my stomach hurts, though I can't be sure of how she knows where it is. Just having her touch it helps, but soon she starts to move her hand in a gentle circle that exerts just a bit of pressure.

"My mother used to do this when we were little as winter started to come," she says. "It's a difficult time of year, isn't it? You know you have a hard journey ahead of you. Many hollow days. You have to make yourself ready for it."

I close my eyes, feeling more relieved than I thought I could from her simple attempts to comfort me.

"I wish you knew what it was like not to have to do this," I tell her. "I wish you'd never had to feel this way, especially as a child."

The circles slow, as if she's thinking.

"That's how I feel when you talk about dying, Peeta. I wish you didn't have to feel that your life must be short, and that if it is short it will be tragic."

I take in a sharp breath, feeling her hand adjust as I do.

"I don't want to be disappointed," I tell her. " If I am going to die I want to die as myself , without the knowledge that it's going to happen making me bitter and angry. Disappointment can make a person that way."

Her hand stops moving completely, and I turn to look at her to see why.

"I have never seen you bitter or angry. Not once. Only accepting. But in your acceptance don't stop trying to live."

She's breaking some part of me on the inside, some part I've hidden away. How did she even find it?

"I won't stop trying," I tell her, and the hope in my voice seems to come from nowhere. The sides of her mouth rise slightly as her hand begins to move again. I raise my head and press my lips to hers, simply meaning to thank her. Nothing is so simple, though.

Her lips feel dry and chapped, and I suddenly want to pull her down beside me and warm her. As if she understands my thoughts, Cai slowly settles down next to me, still looking into my eyes as we turn towards one another. I lift my hand and slowly start to play with her hair just as I have many times. I allow my hand to drift lower, down the column of her neck and down over her delicate collarbone. Cai's eyes close slowly, and she leans into my touch, like she's falling into a dream. Maybe she feels that she is. I know I do. I hesitate. Comforting one another is one thing, but this is something else entirely. Isn't it?

Taking in a silent deep breath, I allow my open hand to move a little lower. Cai gasps, her mouth dropping open slightly before it forms a perfect circle. Her closed eyes flutter without opening as I take the opportunity to kiss her again. As our lips begin to move against each other's, she makes a small sound that reverberates through me, and I try desperately to stay quiet. I can't deny the beauty of this moment, and yet a twinge of guilt threatens to strip away the pleasure that's easing the sting of hunger and the fear of death.

But I can't keep going. I just can't. Is this fair to Cai? And what about Delly?

I start to pull away. But Cai feels it, and places her hand over mine, stopping me before I can pull away completely. She holds my hand against her, allowing me to feel the small peak of the swell under my palm. She shivers, but I don't think it's because of the temperature. We're both so very cold, except when in each other's arms.

Why did she put her hand over mine? Did she want to keep me from pulling away completely? Did she intentionally press my hand down harder like that?

I close my eyes and lay the side of my head against the ground, an action that actually pushes me closer to Cai. The jolt of the change in temperature that the cold cave floor brings clears my fuzzy thoughts a little, though. I keep my hand where she's holding it until she lets go. Once she does she pushes my shoulder back gently to get me to lie on my back. She brushes her lips gently against mine and resumes rubbing her hand in circles over my stomach to keep the hunger pangs at bay as though nothing happened.

/

The hard shove against my shoulder interrupts my sleep, but it is my eyes focusing on the metallic gray of the pistol that makes me shoot straight up from my pallet on the cave floor in a panic. I back up as fast as I can but am reminded that there's nowhere to go when my back hits a jagged edge of the cold stone cave wall. Cautiously I raise my hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

Gao looks down at me, holding the gun loosely in his hand, his finger resting near but not on the trigger.

"Peeta, we need to talk," he says.

As an airman I never carried my gun on missions. Most of the airmen I knew didn't. Some left their guns behind because they thought carrying them was bad luck. Others thought, as I did, that your gun was more likely to be used against you on the ground as it was to help you escape a dangerous situation. George always carried his gun, though. For the two months he was part of our crew we teased him about it often, telling him he was jinxing us. The gun in Gao's hand had to be George's gun.

"Where'd you get that?" I ask, nodding my head warily at the pistol.

"The plane," Gao answers.

I listen but never take my eyes off Gao's hand.

Mulling over in my mind all the reasons Gao might want to shoot me, I keep returning to his protectiveness of Cai. He must know that we haven't been able to abide by the boundaries he wanted. Despite the fact that I've tried to reign in our temptations, I've only been partially successful. At this point just looking at her turns me on, and Gao might have noticed that even without catching us doing anything forbidden.

"Are you going to shoot me?" I ask, for the first time noticing Gao's glassy eyes.

Gao looks down and turns the gun to look at it as if he's forgotten he's holding it.

"No. No," he answers, his tone sounding stunned by my assumptions. "But I need to ask for your help."

I lower my hands a bit as I realize Gao's intentions aren't violent.

"What do you need? You know I want to help," I tell him.

"I'm leaving, and if you stay here I want you to protect the women," he says. "I don't want to leave them yet, but I have to go."

"Why?" I ask.

"It doesn't matter why."

I want to ask if he's leaving because of the woman he wants to marry or for some other reason, but my eyes fall on the gun again.

"I'll protect them any way I can," I tell him.

Gao nods, looking calmer, almost as though my cooperation is the final stage of some fate he's resigned to but is choosing not to reveal to me.

Gao turns the pistol around in his hand. For a moment I am afraid he means something entirely different by "leaving," but then he reaches for one of my still slightly raised hands and places the gun's handle in it.

"In case you need it," he says. "But I hope you won't, of course."

Gao turns to leave the cave, but feeling the need more information I try to stop him.

"Should I do anything different than I have been? Other than keeping the gun?" I ask.

"Move into the house," he says. "You'll be closer to them that way."

Live in the same house with Cai? The thought is both exciting and terrifying. If it'll make her safer I can't argue against it, not that I really want to argue against it. It'd certainly be warmer in the house.

"Have you told them you're going?" I ask Gao.

"No. It's better this way," he says.

"They're going to be upset, Gao. They'll want to say 'good-bye'

"No 'goodbyes,'" he says. "There are times a man has to fight. He just knows it's right."

"Yes," I say, thinking back to my last Christmas with my family. "But he needs to say 'goodbye' in case it turns out like it has for me."

Gao shakes his head.

"I'm not like you," he says

[AN: Hello, readers! I want to thank all of you for reading so far. I hope you are enjoying the story and finding it interesting. Let me know if you can. Remember to recommend this story to friends who might enjoy it. I think it's growing mostly by "word of mouth." Thanks again!]


	13. Threshold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Living in China takes an unexpected turn for Peeta; Cai gets worried when her landlord makes a request.

(Peeta)

Cai arrives with a small amount of rice and soup for me later in the day. I circle my hands around the rice bowl, appreciating its warmth.

"Have you seen Gao?" Cai asks.

"Not for a while," I tell her.

My mother used to say I was an alarmingly good liar, but rarely could I maintain a false façade for long.

"Where did you see him last?"

"Here. He came to talk to me," I tell her. "He was worried. You know, about the usual things."

Cai cuts her eyes over at to me.

"We don't know where he is," she says, wringing her hands.

My heart begins to ache for her. Maybe I should tell her, but I'm still hoping Gao will change his mind and come home. He hasn't even been gone a whole day.

"Maybe he went to the landlord's house," I suggest.

"No, Min's already checked there."

I shrug as if to say, "I don't know."

Cai looks like she's thinking very hard as I sip my soup. Her eyes dart over to me a few times, her brow furrowing. Finally, I can't stand it anymore, and I reach my arms out to her. She crawls over and huddles next to me, balling up tighter than usual. I wrap the blanket around her and then my arms over the blanket. Cai has given me a coat made out of a gray quilted fabric to wear over my shirt, but it's hardly enough to keep me warm, especially right now.

"Cai, Gao left this morning," I whisper, planting a soft kiss on her ear to soften the blow.

"Why didn't you just say that," she says after a brief pause. She sounds like a pouting child.

"I didn't want to tell you. I knew you'd be sad."

Cai's voice catches as she asks "why did he leave? Why didn't he tell me he was going?"

"I don't know, and I'm telling you the truth when I say that."

Cai sighs in frustration.

"Why do you think he left?" she asks me.

Here's where I draw the line on honesty. I don't know where Gao has gone. His vague statements confused me more than anything else. He could have meant he was joining a literal "fight" or simply that he was doing something he believes in that's part of a larger struggle to bring the changes he wants. He could have meant anything, and I can't let Cai imagine he's in danger if I don't know that he is.

"You know him much better than I do. I think you're a better judge," I tell her.

"He's left to be with that woman," she says as she buries her face in the crook of my neck.

Holding her closer I remind her, "you don't know that."

"It's fine," she says. The warm air of the deep exhale she releases tickles my neck. "I knew this would probably happen."

I nod, smoothing her hair reassuringly.

"It's just that I don't know if I'll ever see him again," she adds, "Somehow I can't imagine a life where I never see him again."

"I do know what that feels like," I tell her. "And it's awful, but Gao cares."

Cai huffs as if not believing me.

"No, he does, Cai. He asked me to watch out for you. He gave me the gun from the plane."

Cai suddenly looks up at me.

"He had a gun, and he didn't take it with him?" she asks.

I nod, surprised Cai doesn't know about the gun.

"No, he left it here out of concern. As long as I've known him he's wanted to protect you. He might not want to be your husband, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care what happens to you."

She looks down at her lap.

"I care about him, and I wish I knew where he was."

"Of course you do," I tell her. "That's natural. You know what else he said? I think he might have been joking, but he told me to move into the house."

Cai snaps her head up to look me in the eye.

"You should."

"No, I can't…"

"It's freezing out here, Peeta. You should move into the house."

"Wouldn't that be strange? And what would your mother say?"

"She won't say anything," Cai says, an edge to her voice. "Trust me."

"I don't know if I can…"

"You have to stay with us, Peeta. Please. I've been worried about you. It's…umm…hard to sleep not knowing if you are warm enough," she admits.

I can't help but smile, and Cai makes this opportunity almost impossible to refuse.

"Okay, we'll try it," I tell her.

/

My damaged photograph of Delly is very fragile. I hold it carefully by the edges so that if a piece falls off it won't be any part of her image. Her mouth is barely visible now because of the water damage, but in her eyes I can still see the full evidence of her smile. She had this picture taken specifically to send with me when I left for the war, a sort of gift to me.

Cordelia Cartwright's beauty has always been undeniable. Not only was she beautiful, she was smart and kind to boot. Her father was a deacon in our church, and our parents had been friends since we were babies. Our mothers would stand in the church vestibule and talk for what felt like hours to us.

Delly would hide behind her mother's skirt and pick at the hem while she proclaimed, "boys are gross."

"Girls are disgusting," I'd retaliate, believing that "disgusting" must be worse than "gross." How we knew either of those words at that age is beyond me.

"You won't think that someday, you two," Delly's mother told us, laughing.

Of course, she was right. In the years to come I chased Delly through the aisles and between the pews of the sanctuary playing tag while our fathers discussed the serious business of managing a congregation. In a few more years she blossomed into a young woman, and I found myself chasing her in a completely different way. Even though I was away at school, soon we were writing letters and stealing time together during holidays and breaks. Being with Delly felt good, and our parents encouraged our developing relationship. Delly relaxed me, and when I was lonely or sad at school the thought of seeing her lightened the load. It was very nice. Yes, nice. That's what it was.

I close my eyes, wincing a little. I've changed so much. Everything's changed so much. I don't know if Delly would even like me anymore, let alone want to marry me. She must think I'm dead. She surely knows that I'm missing.

In a flash of insight John comes to mind. His fiancée, a girl he'd dated for a very long time, married someone else while she knew he was alive and well. She wrote him a letter some time later telling him what she'd done, a letter that had to cross an ocean to find its way to John and devastate him. My friend died with a broken heart.

Sighing, I remember how Delly giggled when I kissed her the first time during a break from school. Quick and shy, it had been my first kiss, but not Delly's. Afterwards she laid her head on my shoulder while we studied the stars overhead.

In letters she wrote me several times a week, she shared all the latest happenings at home. I wrote to her almost as often with much less interesting tales from boarding school. My dorm mates teased me about receiving so many letters, but I think some of them were jealous.

Delly signed a card, "I love you, Peter" and sent it to me on the Valentines' day before Pearl Harbor. In my next letter I wrote "I love you too, Delly." I did love her. I mean, I do love her. But my memories of her muddle together in a mix or confusion, friendship and love. I wonder, did I love her the way a man should love the woman he's going to marry or did I ask her to marry because I was a scared kid going off to fight in a war?

You're just trying to justify what you did. You cheated on your fiancée. You crossed a line, and you know it. Then again, it's not like you are actually married to Delly. That does make a difference, doesn't it? 

In a demonstration of how truly strange my way of dealing with the situation is I run the pad of one of my index finger along the edge of the photograph of Delly and start talking.

"I'm so sorry. So sorry you don't know where I am or what's happened to me. I'm so sorry that I asked you to wait for me. It wasn't fair. How long are you supposed to wait if I never make it home? Maybe you were just supposed to wait until after the war? I don't know. We never discussed it."

A sudden burst of emotion fills me as my words become some new level of confession.

"I didn't know this would happen. Just never imagined I'd feel so much for somebody else. I don't know if I would have with you. Maybe. I just don't know, but I'm never going to find out because I'm never going to see you again. Maybe you've met someone else too, someone who makes you question everything you thought you knew and promised. The thought of that makes me happy for you and sad for us at the same time."

There's suddenly a pressure on my shoulder, and I whirl around to find Min behind me. I drop Delly's picture. Min smiles.

"Is that your sister?" Min asks.

"No, I have a brother. She's…someone from home." I pick up the picture gently by two corners and place it in the safest place I have, the inside of the jar I had been using to store water. It's empty now and dried out from the winter air.

"Oh, she looks like you," Min says. "So, are you ready to go to the house?" she asks. "I was going to show you where to put your things and where to sleep."

I gather a few of my possessions, which consist mostly of things Cai and her family have given me to make my life and theirs a bit easier since I've been living out in the cave away from them. I gather my few possessions, which consist mostly of things Cai and her family have given me to make my life and theirs a bit easier since I've been living out in the cave away from them. Before following Min out of the cave I glance around this place that has been my home for months, wondering if I will ever have reason to come here again or hide here again. Though it has been cold and lonely at times, this is the place where Cai and I shared our first kiss and where I began to realize that what I feel for her is completely different than anything I've ever felt before.

I press my lips together nervously as we arrive at Cai's family's small house. As soon as we cross the threshold I take in its warmth. Not only is there a small fire with a pot of something cooking over it, but the lack of stone walls seems to make the place warmer also. The house is all one room, but petitioned off by what look like movable screens. They are plain, home-made, wooden, and obviously meant to provide some privacy. Min takes me behind one and shows me a small space with a blanket and a few clothes lying on top of it.

"This is where Gao slept. You can sleep here now," she says.

She points across the house to another partitioned area. "That's where I sleep, and Cai sleeps there too," she says. "And that's where mother sleeps," she says softly, gesturing to the area closest to the door.

I look over to where Cai's mother sleeps and wonder if she's there right now. She must be. I know Cai is outside getting firewood, but everyone else should be inside. It's too cold to stay outside without a purpose.

Min points to the clothes laying across the mat she's just given me as a place to sleep.

"These were my father's," she says. "We think you should have them. I will make them fit you if they don't. I can sew. Mother taught me," she says proudly.

"Oh, thank you," I tell her, hoping that the clothes don't fit perfectly just so Min can show off her sewing skills she seems so delighted to have.

I sit down, arranging my possessions at the foot of my "bed." When my grandparents lived in China they lived between two cultures in many ways. The hospital had western-style beds, of course. Their home did also. They ate mostly what the Chinese ate and drank what they drank. They weren't accustomed to sitting, squatting, and sleeping on the floor as many of the Chinese were but tried anyway. Their church experimented with different ways of worshiping and teaching. Grandfather said he didn't think God cared whether you prayed while sitting on a mat or with your knees on a kneeling bench as long as you prayed. He also told me that the most heartfelt prayers tended to be from the desperate and broken anyway…and you can be that as anybody, anywhere. Hadn't I learned that what he said was true?

Learning to live between two cultures hadn't been as hard for me as I'd imagined it must have been for my grandparents. Cai is one of the reasons. Learning about the way her family lives is part of learning about her, and I like learning about her. New opportunities to learn appear every day.

Cai suddenly opens the door, her arms full of frost covered sticks. She sighs and lays them down on the floor by the door.

"Hello, Peeta," she greets me as I peek around the petition at her.

"Hello," I answer.

"Welcome to our home," she says.

I smile, but try to hide it by pretending to be very busy with something behind the partition so that I can't be troubled with facing her.

She walks to me anyway and sits down beside me.

"The landlord wants to see you," Cai says softly. "I don't know why, and I'm scared."

She is rarely so forthcoming with her fears, though I know she has many.

I pause in what I'm doing. "Do you think he'll make me leave the farm?" I ask without looking up.

"I don't know, Peeta. I hope not. I don't want you to have to leave."

Her voice tells me she's near tears. She leans into me just as I'm about to take her into my arms anyway.

Turning to hold her more comfortably I look over Cai's shoulder and find a wide-eyed Min staring back at me, apparently frozen in shock.

"When?" I ask, closing my eyes.

"This afternoon. He asked for both of us."

[AN: Special thanks to Loueze for her continued role in helping me with this story...she's just too awesome to explain in an author's note!]


	14. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peeta meets with Cai's landlord; Cai tells an important lie and reveals some of her feelings.

(Peeta)

The landlord's house is nothing like Cai's. It's surrounded by a low inner wall, specifically for the house and distinct from a much higher wall that surrounds a larger part of the landlord's property. Instead of every item in the house being functional, there are some whose purpose is decorative, including a map hanging on the wall. I'm drawn to the map immediately, of course. It was probably intended for functional use at one time. It isn't anything like the highly accurate and very new military maps I'm used to seeing, but it may still be useful

Cai watches me with curiosity as I place my fingers on one point on the map and then another. I try to stop my face from falling. The map drives home the truth once again that getting home is next to impossible unless the Chinese armies or the other allied armies retake this area. Their advance here seems unlikely given the remoteness of the location. It doesn't appear to have any strategic value. Rivers block several paths to escape. The country is so large that the distances alone seem insurmountable, especially given the limitations of my poorly healed broken leg. Cai was right all along. Leaving on foot would be suicide, especially in winter. Friendly areas are simply too far away. If I the landlord forces me to leave, I'm a dead man walking.

The landlord, the only person I've met since the plane crash who wasn't rail thin, chuckles a little when he sees me. Wondering what that means, I hesitate to walk over to greet him. He approaches me instead, looks me over from head to toe, and then turns to Cai.

"He seems well," the landlord says jovially, gesturing in my direction.

Compared to half-dead after the crash I suppose I am well. But my family would not consider my thinner, paler, quieter self "well" if they could see me now.

"Much better than he was," Cai answers.

"The Americans will be pleased if they find him. You've done well. He's a pilot?" the landlord asks.

"Yes. He wasn't piloting the plane that day, though," she tells him.

"A bomber, then?"

"Yes," Cai answers.

The landlord smiles, as if he's glad he's meeting someone who drops bombs on his enemies. There's no need to explain my specific role on the plane. He seems to be glad to believe what he does, and there's definitely truth in it.

The landlord addresses me directly for the first time.

"Do you want to stay here?"

"Yes," I answer, looking to Cai for approval after I've said it. I use my most respectful Chinese words, thinking back to my grandmother's lessons on greeting important people. "As long as I have your permission, Sir."

The landlord smiles.

"You do," he answers, and he chuckles again when he sees my sigh of relief.

"But may I ask you about your map?" I ask.

He nods, looking impressed.

Pointing to places on the map that were under Chinese or allied control at the time of the crash I ask about them. I make sure not to point out any military bases, but I know where the airfields are. Then I draw lines with my fingers around the areas under Japanese control at the time our plane crashed.

"Have you heard whether any of that has changed?" I ask.

"We get news slowly," he says, "but I don't think much has changed near here. I'm afraid you may be with us for some time if you choose not to venture out on foot."

He's simply confirmed what I already knew. I can't make it home. Probably will never make it home. For me to survive and get home we'd have to win the war. The US would have to be on friendly terms with the Chinese government after the war. China would have to be politically stable enough for the army to look for me. Plus, I'd have to survive the threats of disease, starvation and capture until all that happened. So many factors coming together in my favor sounds more like a miracle than a possibility.

The landlord turns back and gestures with his hand toward Cai.

"And what about this woman?" he asks me. "What are you going to do about her?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"You are living together with her in her family's home," he points out.

"Gao told me to do that," I explain, sensing that the landlord finds our living arrangements distasteful.

The landlord raises an eyebrow in surprise.

"He told you to?" he asks, clearly skeptical. "Gao never mentioned that to me."

"He said I could protect the family better that way," I say.

"I doubt that is the only reason he would ask," the landlord says. "Are you going to stay with her?"

"Uh…should I stay somewhere else, Sir?"

"I only want to know if you plan to stay with her or if I need to try to find her someone else. I know her mother isn't well," he explains. "I feel it's in my interests to make sure she finds someone."

"I…I…"

"Peeta has told me his intentions are to stay with me," Cai tells the landlord. The landlord raises his eyebrows as he glances in her direction. "Of course, I have been told that before. This time, maybe the promise will be kept."

The landlord smiles broadly.

"He will bring us good luck," he tells her. "I'm sure of it."

"You are like fish in clean water," he says to me with a pat on my shoulder.

That sounds like a compliment.

"Thank you and thank you for allowing me to stay here, Sir."

One of the landlord's servants comes into the room and whispers in his ear.

"I have to go," the landlord says a moment later, "but good luck to you, Peeta."

/

"What did he mean 'stay with' you? I ask Cai once we've left the boundaries of the landlord's home and are walking back to the farm.

"He thinks you have promised to marry me," she tells me.

I stop midstride. Cai turns to face me, not seeming nearly as stunned as I am.

"Have I?" I ask her, bewildered.

Surely my Chinese isn't that bad.

"No," she says, "But the landlord doesn't need to know that."

"Are we allowed to do that? Be engaged?" I ask her, my heart picking up speed at even the thought of a real, recognized relationship with Cai.

"If he says we can, then we can," she explains. "It wouldn't be very official, but nothing is with the Japanese in charge. We try to avoid them at all costs. It wasn't that different before, though. The landlord is in charge of the people on his land and makes their lives his business."

"So you are telling me that we could get married? But sort of secretly?" I ask.

"Yes," Cai answers, looking a bit confused, as if she believes I should already know all this.

"So why did you tell the landlord I had told you I wanted to stay with you?"

"Because you did," she says as she turns away, starts walking again, and motions for me to follow her

"But I didn't mean marriage."

"I know that, Peeta. Just let the landlord believe whatever he wants as long as he lets you stay. You don't want to have to leave, do you?"

"No. No."

"Then trust me," she says.

"So, are we going to fool him into thinking we've married?

"Maybe. Thinking we are engaged might be enough to appease him," she says.

"But what's going to happen to you, Cai? Don't you want to find someone who can be your husband for real?"

"It's never going to be for real, Peeta. I've given up. If you want to help me you can play along and pretend to be engaged to me. We'll all just do the best we can on the farm. Maybe one of the neighbors can be persuaded to help with the heavier work for a few years. Then maybe we can break tradition once again and allow Min to marry before I do."

Cai sounds sad, but resigned. I reach out to her, pulling gently on her arm to ask her to stop walking. She does, glancing at me before casting her eyes off in the distance as if she can't look at me right now.

"Is that what you want?" I ask her.

"What I want doesn't matter. It never has," she says.

"No, Cai! There has to be somebody for you. You're beautiful, smart, and kind. There's no reason…"

"Stop it!" she says. "Please don't say those things."

"But I mean them," I tell her. "I do."

She scowls. "But they are hard for me to hear."

/

When we arrive back at the house Min is sitting near the fire with her mother, who is turned away from us. Cai huffs and takes a few quick steps toward her sister and mother, complaining to Min.

"What are you doing? She shouldn't be there! Peeta's right here." Cai says.

"She got cold, Cai. Peeta is living with us. It's alright. Besides, you seemed very familiar with him earlier today. I know you trust him," Min says. Her voice is defensive, and she clutches her mother's wrist as she talks to Cai.

"I was going to tell him, but..." I overhear Cai whisper.

"I'll just go…" I start to say.

"No. No, Peeta," Min pleads. "I actually think you can help. Will you talk to our mother and see if she knows you.

"Min!" Cai screams. "Don't say that! Peeta, you should go. I hate to tell you to do that, but could you wait in the barn?"

I'm unsure of what to say or who to obey at this point, but Cai is the most forceful about the matter.

"I want to see if she knows him. He's the only one she hasn't known a long time. It's a good test," Min objects. "Let him stay."

Cai looks between us, and thinks for a minute before nodding, giving in to Min's request. Then she reaches up to her mother's hair, which is hanging down her back. She slowly twists it and begins wrapping it in a bun at the back of her head. Very gently she readjusts her mother's shirt and rubs her shoulder.

"I'm sorry you got cold, Mother," Cai whispers.

I suddenly realize that Cai's mother hasn't reacted to this argument between her daughters. She's not responding to Cai fussing over her or talking to her either.

"Peeta," Cai says softly, "can you come over here?"

This is what I wanted anyway, my curiosity peaked by this strange situation.

As I walk over Cai motions for me to join her in kneeling beside her mother. I do, noticing how the woman seems frail, and she didn't seem frail at all when I first met her. She keeps staring ahead and doesn't react to the noise of my approach or my presence beside her.

"Mother, look. Do you know this man?" Cai asks. Cai's mother doesn't move, but Cai grasps her arm gently and asks the question again.

The woman turns to look at me, her eyes squinting and then widening in surprise. She suddenly shifts away from me as if startled.

"It's alright," I reassure her.

Cai, sounding frustrated, asks her mother again, "do you know this man?"

Min leans in closer to her mother.

Cai's mother says "Mellark."

She says my last name perfectly, and I didn't even know she knew it. My shock must show on my face because Cai shakes my arm and asks me what's wrong.

Cai's mother grazes my hand with her fingertips. When she raises her head she smiles.

"Do you know what she means?" Cai asks, apparently not recognizing the word as my last name either. Maybe I've never told Cai my last name.

"Mellark is my family name," I explain.

Min smiles broadly and wraps her mother in her arms.

"Mother, you remembered a name we don't even call him. Very good!" she says.

I'm still confused.

"Cai, can I talk to you?" I ask.

She nods. I take her hand and lead her to my sleeping place.

"I know you might not want to tell me this, but why is your mother acting that way?" I ask.

Cai bristles and then crosses her arms defiantly.

"I just want to help," I tell her.

"She is not well. She gets that way sometimes. We don't know why. It's happened several times since my father died. Usually she gets better after a few months."

She glares at me.

"Look, I'm the one who should be upset," I tell her. "You didn't even tell me about this. I would have tried to help earlier."

"Min and I can take care of her," she says.

"Fine. I won't help. Whatever you want."

I watch Cai slowly lower her defenses, uncrossing her arms and softening her facial expression.

"Did you know my name?" I ask her.

"Yes, Peeta," she sighs.

"My whole name, Cai?"

She raises an eyebrow.

"Are you testing my memory?" she asks.

"I just want to know."

"Peeta. Just Peeta. That's all I know."

"No, my name is actually Peter Mellark. You mother knows my last name, and I don't know how she could. I've barely talked to her since I've been here. Does she read English?"

"Of course not," Cai says. "You must have said it to her and don't remember now. I might not have realized it was your name if you said it. When you speak English I don't know if what you say are people's name or words."

"Well, your mother knew."

"Just chance, Peeta. Just chance," she says.

But I cannot get out of my mind that she knew my name. Spending the rest of the night thinking about it on and off I conclude that Cai's mother must have known how to read my name. My uniform and other personal items were labeled with my name. Somehow she must have read it.

(Cai's POV)

Knowing that our landlord will allow Peeta to stay with us indefinitely and would wholeheartedly supports a marriage between him and a woman on his property is a great relief. Peeta is in no danger from the landlord. It is the closest thing to full acceptance of his presence that we can hope to have. The neighbors will most likely respect the landlord's wishes.

The stories we farmers have heard recently from travelers make me ever more leery of any contact with the military, especially the Japanese military. The more irrelevant we seem, the safer we are. Though I hope our soldiers, the Americans, and the many others I have heard are fighting against the Japanese are successful, I can't afford to have my family personally involved. I have people to protect, people I love.

Peeta is very conscientious as a member of the household. He spends most of his time behind his small petition. At first we rarely talk the way we used to because Min and my mother could overhear, but after a few days I truly begin to miss spending time alone with him.

On the fourth night I wake up in the middle of the night to a noise. Slowly, despite my sleepiness, I realize that it's Peeta's voice I'm hearing. Not unlike the day I found him dreaming in the cave he's speaking words I don't understand and sounding upset.

A nightmare. 

His voice becomes a bit louder and I hear something fall over near where he sleeps. Fearing he'll wake everyone, including mother, I jump up from my sleeping mat and navigate through the dark to reach where Peeta sleeps.

Whispering his name, I reach for him as I kneel near the petition by his mat. He startles awake, crashing into me, hitting my collarbone with what must be his forehead. I sense him backing away, and he tries to catch him breath.

My hand instinctually covers my stinging shoulder.

"Peeta, you were dreaming. You're fine," I tell him.

"Dreaming?" He repeats sleepily. "Oh. Oh. It was just a dream?"

His voice doesn't reveal much relief, and he seems to be wrapping his arms around his knees.

"What was it?" I ask.

"I. Uh. No. Can't talk about it," he says unevenly.

"Why not?" I ask gently.

"You would not think of me the same, Cai. I can't."

I don't say anything. Instead I fumble in the darkness until I find him. His skin is clammy and cold. When I reach up to touch the place where I believe he hit his forehead against me he flinches, but I notice that his forehead and hair are sweaty.

"You need to sleep again," I tell him.

"No!" He says a little too loudly before lowering his voice. "I don't want to sleep. Not now."

"Do you want to talk, Peeta?"

"Yes," he whispers.

So I sit down, and I tell Peeta a story. He loves it when I tell him stories. This one is a tale my mother used to tell us when we were children, but it has just as much value for us now that we are grown up. It is the story of a man who felt he owed a debt that he wished to repay, but in repaying it he destroyed himself.

Peeta leans against my shoulder.

"Now I'll tell you one," he says. "It's about a boy who leaves home before he was supposed to leave home. His father had enough money that his two sons would inherit it when he died, but the boy who was leaving home asked for his money early. Then he traveled far from home and wasted all the money instead of using it for anything good."

Peeta sighs sadly and pauses before continuing.

"Some bad things happened to the boy. He was desperate and hungry. He remembered that the servants at his father's house didn't feel desperate and hungry like he did, so he decided to go to his father and beg to be a servant in his house. He thinks his father will be angry, but when his father sees the boy he is so happy that he tells the whole house that they are going to have a party. He brings the nicest clothes for his son, and he accepts him despite everything he's...um…done. Everything."

Peeta's voice starts to crack. I gently kiss his cheek and feel the wetness there but choose to stay quiet. He needs me to be here with him but not talk too much.

"That is a beautiful story, Peeta. The father forgave him," I say.

"Yes, but the boy didn't kill anyone," he whispers.

"Oh," I say. Forgetting Peeta has spent several years fighting in a war is easy because he's such a gentle person, but he fought just like anybody else would when he had to fight.

"The boy had no need to do so. He left home to live a life of pleasure not one of duty, a life of shame not one of honor," I tell him.

Peeta sighs again.

"If it was what I had to do then why does it give me nightmares?" he asks.

I kiss his cheek again.

"Because you don't like to see anybody die. Right, Peeta? You wish nobody else had to die. You want the war to end, and you want to go home. Maybe return to your father?"

Peeta's voice is suddenly confident.

"That's not really what the story is supposed to be about," he says. "But maybe that's one reason I told it."

We talk for a long time before Peeta finally decides to lie down. He tells me how he learned this story and what his father, who is a teacher of his religion, taught him about it. It is a story from the book they read. He tells me more about his father and how they used to fish together on a lake. I sit beside Peeta until he finally drifts off to sleep, his final words to me for the night being, "thank you."

/

Peeta consumes my thoughts. I forget to do some of my chores around the house and to be careful with the rationing of food. I still do these things, but not as well. He distracts me, but I don't dislike the distraction. I very much like it.

I look at him and see beauty. He is a handsome man, as many men are. He is also kind and warm to me. How can this happen to me? I do not want it to happen. Doesn't a woman have to want a man to love him? I talked to Peeta about marriage and love when I had troubles with Gao, but suddenly I'm embarrassed if those subjects drift remotely into our conversations.

One day Peeta asked me what he should do if one of the landlord's servants or a neighbor speaks to him about us.

"Does everybody know that the landlord believes we are promised to one another?" he asked.

I felt my face burn with a heat I hadn't expected. Unable to speak, I just nodded to him and cast my eyes to my feet. Sometimes I stare at him, and Peeta is not oblivious to my stares. He stares back, to the point that Min has tried to get our attention by asking one of us a question, presumably to break the trance.

Our affections have dwindled to soft brushes against one another that might appear accidental but probably are not. Sometimes at night when we hear the other is awake I go to Peeta's area of the house, and we steal a few kisses in the dark.

I believe that I "love" Peeta in the way he has described love, and I don't know what to do. Peeta has become so important to me that I cannot imagine letting him go, and yet he must go someday. And this must be what Peeta means by a broken heart, because I can feel my chest hurt when I imagine him leaving with his fellow soldiers someday, someday when we are free of the war in our country. Peeta will be free. He will be the boy who returns home. He should not be ashamed or need forgiveness, but he will return to his father and be given the wonderful things his father can offer him. I will be here. Without him. Without love.

Sometimes at night when I believe Peeta and everyone else is asleep I cry tears of frustration, wishing that I did not love. I wish that I never had to think about marriage because then Gao would not have done what he did to me. More surprisingly I wish that I did not love Peeta because it hurts too much to love him and know he can never be my real husband. We can pretend to be promised to one another to keep him safe. We can even pretend to marry, but his love and loyalty will always be with the people he left behind at home. He loves them. That is as it should be. And as this winter grows darker, colder and more hollow every day, I think about how Peeta will most likely be the only man I ever love whether I live a few more months or another sixty years.

[AN: continued thanks to Loueze for her invaluable help with this story]


	15. Truth

(Cai)

The house is quiet except for the soft sounds of Peeta moving around behind the petition of his sleeping place. I know he's awake. The question is whether or not to go to him. He's happy when I do, but he doesn't beckon me there. Maybe he believes he shouldn't.

I slowly rise from my sleeping mat, checking to make sure that Min is asleep before taking a few tentative steps. The moon is full tonight, and although the house is still very dark a small amount of light does shine through some cracks in the upper parts of the walls.

Peeta intertwines our fingers when I find him. He's sitting up against the wall, and when I sit next to him he immediately leans in to kiss me. As his lips move slowly against mine I begin to imagine him as my husband and companion. He'd never leave me. I deepen the kiss and Peeta places a hand on my lower back. My shirt is lifted a bit by the motion, probably accidently, and I feel his hand directly on my skin. While it is cold it sends shockwaves through my body, and I find myself arching my back a bit in response. I slowly lower myself down to the floor, Peeta leaning over me with one hand now on the floor and the other still resting behind me. He sighs, and for a moment I think he's going to withdraw from me again, leaving me to wonder if he's not enjoying this or if he's simply too conflicted to make a go of it. All I know is I need him. I need his warmth, kindness, kisses, and strength. I need them right now.

Suddenly he removes his hand from behind me, and I brace for his retreat, preparing myself for the rejection I'll feel. Why do I let myself love him when I know we can never be together? But instead of withdrawing Peeta places his hand under my head and begins to kiss me again, ever more passionately. He lowers his body so that he's lying beside me, and I turn on my side to follow his movements. We're face to face now, as we once were in the cave. So much closer than usual.

"You're so beautiful," he whispers. "I know you don't want me to say it, but you are."

"You can't even see me, Peeta."

"But I know you are beautiful. I see you all the time, and it's not just this that's beautiful." He lifts his hand and moves it up and down. "All of you is beautiful."

He's confusing me now.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"You take such good care of your mother and Min. You even take care of me," he says. "I think that's beautiful. And…and…I want to be with you forever. Where you are, that's where I want to be. Your father was wrong. That connection…that bond…it's with me, not Gao. It was always going to be with me."

I shiver, wanting to tell him that I believe him, but unable to say it.

He kisses me again. It's a long, unhurried kiss. Along with his honey sweet words it makes me lean into him without even meaning to do so, but he's moving away suddenly. I reach for him, but I only feel the coldness of his absence. I try to say his name, but my voice fails.

Suddenly what has been ethereal becomes concrete. I'm aware that I've been sleeping with my arm folded under me such that it tingles from being neglected and pressed too hard by my head. My other hand forms a fist as I open my tear-filled eyes. I find that I'm lying on the floor beside Peeta's sleeping mat. He's rolled off of it and is lodged between it and the petition.

It was a dream.

I am here with him, but not at all in the way my mind just imagined. Gradually I remember what a bad day Peeta's had, and I start to focus on him. He's sleeping heavily now, and I'm grateful. My dreams must have wanted me to forget about watching helplessly as he learned a new lesson in hunger.

(Peeta – 3 hours earlier)

The girls look thinner these past few weeks, and I wasn't expecting that they would, probably because they were already thin enough that I couldn't imagine them thinner. When Cai looks at me now her eyes seem to take up more of her face, and her whole body appears more angular. When I touch her shoulders or arms the bones feel more prominent. Her skin feels more delicate but not as soft. I wish there was something I could do to provide more food for us, but I can't think of anything we haven't already done.

Nightmares interrupt my sleep most nights, and I often take a nap or two during the day. Naps would have been an unfathomable luxury during the hard work of harvest, but now napping helps to pass time when I would otherwise be very hungry, bored, or cold. The others seem to sleep more also, so I know my sleepiness is not entirely due to the toll the nightmares take. I've been noticing those changes for a while, but nothing compares to today.

I press my forehead harder against my hand and squint my eyes closed in an attempt to banish the one thought that seems to be consuming my whole mind. Food. How can I, personally, get more food? All I can think of is food, and it's not some fleeting wish. Today food is an obsession.

I know where Cai stores our rations for the day. I could just…take some. Maybe nobody would notice.

My throat tightens. Could hunger make me into a monster who would steal from two equally hungry women and a young girl? And have I forgotten how much I care about them, especially one of them? I am not who I was before the plane crash, but I refuse to allow myself to betray Cai and her family when they've been so kind to me.

Still, all I can think of is food. I think of my mother's food, the simple dishes she prepared for weeknights and the complex ones she occasionally tried for special occasions. I think of the food we were eating this fall here in China, when we could eat as much as we wanted without even considering how much might be left. Even the mundane field rations from the army now seem mouthwatering in my memory, even though I know they were not.

Much of the day and into the evening I've been lying on my mat, mostly because I feel unsteady when I get up. I'm not exactly sick, but I'm not well. Selfishly hoping Cai will come to visit me I make a little more noise than usual when I shift from one side to the other on my mat, but there's no response from the her side of the house. Maybe she's sleeping again.

I lay my hand over the waist of my pants. Unlike at home, I wear the same clothes to sleep in that I wear all day. I do change and wash them, but they aren't what I would call clean at the moment. The pants are loose at the waist even though Min has already taken them in for me once.

"I can always let them out again," she said cheerfully while doing the work, "I'm sure I'll have to in the spring."

In spring the world will come alive again, bringing us back to life with it. God, I wish it would come faster. I lay my hand across my belly, which aches in a different place now than it once did. Changing sides again to take the pressure off my hip I decide to try to sleep. Maybe I won't have a nightmare. Maybe if I do it won't be worse than this.

"Peeta?" Cai whispers from behind me. I didn't heard her come to me, but I'm so glad she did that a smile immediately spreads across my face when I see her. She's such a relief from the hopeless times here in China and the only person I truly want to enjoy the good moments with me.

"Cai, thank you so much, I am so…" Realizing how desperate my voice sounds, I stop talking. Cai's face scrunches into an expression of worry. She drops to her knees beside me.

"Are you having nightmares? You sound like you can't lie still," she asks.

"No. No nightmares," I tell her, reaching my hand up to touch hers. If I sit up I'll feel funny. Today is just different. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel stronger. Cai was right when she said winter is about survival.

"Then what is it?" she asks.

I can't tell her the truth. She might try to give me something to eat, and that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the family. Cai leans over and kisses me lightly on the lips while passing her hand down my cheek, past my ear, and into my hair. Then she lies down beside me, facing me. I don't even have the energy for her proximity to do to me what it normally would. Instead, I just sigh wistfully. I interlace our fingers, trying to squeeze her hand but finding my grip weak. Cai rests the hand I'm not holding on my chest.

"Are you thinking of home?" she asks.

"No," I tell her. "No more questions. Please. I can't think."

"A hollow day then?" she asks, a knowing tone in her voice.

My silence tells her what she needs to know. She starts to pull her hands away from me, tying to sit up. I grip the hand I'm holding as hard as I can, ultimately retaining only her fingers. She pauses.

"No!" I snap, sounding surprisingly angry. "I won't take any more. That'll make me feel worse than I do now. Min already gave me some rice your mother didn't eat. I don't understand! I still feel so empty."

"And it's likely that nothing will make you feel full, but eating a little more might make you stronger," she whispers as she kisses my ear. I know what she's doing. She's trying to calm me, but it won't work. I've been trying to calm myself for hours.

"No!" I tell her, vainly fighting to keep hold of her fingers as she tries to pulls away again.

"Peeta, what good do you think it'll be to any of us if you get so weak you can barely move?"

She has a point, but it scares me that she believes that's a possibility right now.

Why can't I be stronger?

"But you are not feeling the way I do, Cai," I say guiltily.

"I have, and I will again. Everybody's different," she says. "Besides, you are a man and bigger than me. It makes sense that you feel this way. Gao usually felt it first, too. But Min, Mother and I will have times like this."

Wanting anyone else to feel the way I do would be so wrong. No, I want to be stronger…and for all of us not to need so much.

I try to refuse the food again when she offers it, but I can't.

"What do you want to eat, Peeta?" she asks. "It might help to eat what you want most."

I don't even like what I feel driven to request, but it does make me feel like I've eaten something. Maybe that's because I eat it slower.

"Some of those preserved vegetables maybe," I tell her, "and a little soup."

Cai finally frees her fingers, and she uses them to stroke the back of my empty hand a few times before saying, "that's fine."

While Cai's gone to get the food I take my time to sit up and lean against the wall. When she returns she's holding a small bowl of the vegetables in her hand, and she presses a slightly larger bowl of soup into mine.

I sip the soup, hoping she still intends to give me both the soup and the vegetables.

"Are those for me?" I finally ask quietly, pointing to the smaller bowl.

"Yes," she tells me, not surprised by my question. "It's all right. You'll feel better tomorrow. More like yourself."

I nod, hoping she's right. Frequent thoughts of gorging myself on the family's food supplies are difficult for me to stomach, and this insidious irritability that I can't quite explain concerns me.

When I've finished eating, I want to lie down again. Cai watches as I do, saying nothing. She runs her fingers though my hair a few times, then lies down next to me.

"You really have days like this too?" I ask her.

She pauses before answering.

"I can't know exactly what's happening to you, but if it's what I think it is then I certainly do. Nothing you eat comes close to satisfying you. All you can think about is food, food, food."

"Yeah, that's it. And I'm so tired. I can barely hold my eyes open."

"Then go to sleep, Peeta. You'll feel better later."

"Is this what starving feels like?" I ask her.

"I think so, but you're not going to die. I promise."

"You can't promise that," I huff.

"I told you I've felt that way before, and I'm still here," she says.

"I won't let you risk your life or your family for me, Cai."

"And I won't let you slip away because you don't think you're worth saving," she tells me. "You can't give up, Peeta."

I close my eyes, too exhausted to make any more flustered arguments against her way of thinking. As I drift off to sleep I feel her arms around me.

/

The next day I decide to take up a hobby to keep my mind occupied when I'm awake, so it doesn't drift to dark places as often. With a small knife I start to carve pieces of what would otherwise be firewood into small objects. First I carve a cross, which is relatively easy for me. It's plain, without decoration. I don't believe in things like that protecting a person, but I think I can use it as a reminder that I'm not alone…even when I am alone. Then I carve something for Min, a small four legged animal. I'm hoping to make it look like the water buffalo. I have something I've started for Cai also, but I can only work on it when I know she won't see me if I want to keep it a secret. So, progress is slower on the project for Cai. I've never been very good at sculpting, and carving doesn't come that easy for me even with relatively simple designs. Still, I can lie or sit on my mat and make attempts at these projects for hours.

Cai watches me sometimes as I work on the cross and the animal for Min. She wants to know what they are and why I'm making them, so I tell her. I think I could talk to Cai every day for the rest of my life and never get bored. She gets tired easily too these days, and sometimes she lies down or leans heavily on my shoulder. We start to give up all pretense of avoiding being "alone" together during the day, but at night we separate to sleep in our usual places. A few times, Cai falls asleep beside me during the day, even rolls into me in her sleep. I don't see any shame in it. She sleeps close to Min at night, and I think it's just that she senses the warmth of another person. Her mother is oblivious, and Min doesn't seem surprised. I wonder how things were with Gao in the house. He and Cai never acted comfortable with being physically close to one another when they were around me.

Min catches me working on Cai's "gift" one day. She's very inquisitive and already knows I'm making something for her, though I am bad enough at carving that she couldn't tell exactly what it was supposed to be.

"So this one is for Cai? What is it?" she asks, pointing to the small round piece of wood I'm carving.

"I'll never tell," I joke.

"Oh, please," Min begs. "You can tell me what hers is even if you won't tell me about mine. It'll be our secret."

"No, no secrets."

Min cuts her eyes at me.

"Well, I know your secrets. You aren't that good at hiding them, Peeta."

I shake my head at her.

Silly girl.

"What secrets do you know?" I tease as I run the knife along the wood.

She leans in and lowers her voice to a barely audible whisper.

"Cai says you are not truly promised to each other, but I know you want to be."

I lean back. Min grins broadly as if she's proven something. I can almost feel the color drain from my face.

"Min, I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that," I finally say.

"You should say, 'that's right, Min' because it is. Don't you believe in telling the truth?"

"Usually," I say, returning my attention to the small piece of wood in my left hand and looking it over to see how I can continue to shape it.

"You should tell her," Min whispers. "Isn't that what you would do at home?"

I shift my weight and furrow my brow, trying to focus on the carving. This is a very uncomfortable conversation to be having with Cai's little sister.

"I'm not sure what I'd do at home, but this isn't home. I have to think about what makes Cai's life better."

"You do," Min tells me, pointing her finger into the arm that's using the knife. "She is happy when you are near her."

"She won't be forever, Min. She needs to find somebody here. There's got to be a good farmer who would treat Cai well and be happy to marry her. Has anybody really tried to find a man like that since the whole mess with Fa?"

I look at her, waiting for an answer.

Min presses her lips together, then stares at her hands where they rest in her lap.

"Have you ever wondered why Cai didn't marry Fa?" she asks, timidly looking back up at me.

"I didn't need to wonder because she told me. She said he didn't agree with her about taking care of the people she loved. Then she found out about the bet. I don't blame her for not marrying him, but surely there's somebody else..."

Min sounds much too grown up for her age when you clarifies what really happened.

"Peeta, Cai didn't want to marry Fa mostly because he refused to let her protect you. She doesn't want the landlord to find someone else for her because she thinks her new match won't let her either. She can't allow anybody to send you away. You're too important to her."

Suddenly I can't breathe. Reeling from the idea that I'm so directly responsible for ruining Cai's match with Fa and her prospects for another match, I put the small knife and piece of wood down beside me,.

"She wouldn't do that," I choke out. "Not for me."

"She would, and she did."

"But I thought it was about you and your Mother," I stammer. "That Fa didn't want you here."

"No, Fa said we could stay, Peeta. He said you had to leave. That's when she refused him."

I scrub my face with my hands, then try to appear stoic.

"How do you know?" I ask, slowly.

"Gao told me. Well, Cai told me some of it, but Gao told me the part about you. Everybody knows, I think."

"Everybody?"

"Well, everybody that knows about you at all," Min says.

I close my eyes tightly.

"You okay?" Min asks.

Maybe I will be, but knowing that all this information came from Gao makes it that much more credible.

"Gao asked me what I thought of what she did," Min explains, her tone a little softer. "He's not that good at understanding Cai, but he knows I am. So I told him how different she is around you, and he said he'd noticed that too. I told him that Cai talked about you all the time…"

I shake my head, then open my eyes to face Min.

"Your sister and I can't be together. You know that, don't you? Whether she protects me like this or not, we can't be together."

"Who says?" Min says, sitting up straighter as if to challenge my assumption.

And I honestly can't think of anyone at the moment. Except me.

"Besides," Min adds, "aren't you already 'together?'"

"I think I would put her in danger someday," I finally answer.

"And she's not in danger now? Hungry and cold in a harsh winter?`"

"But you know what I mean," I say, exasperated. "I'm not supposed to be here. People won't want me here."

"Peeta, the landlord suggested that you and Cai marry."

"But he's not the only person around here," I say.

"He matters more than anybody," Min says. "Where else do you think you'll go if you stay in China? My father lived on this land his whole life and so did his father. I don't know how many of my ancestors did before him, but I suspect there were many. The landlord's family has been here even longer. You and my sister are good at working together and at being together. You should be together. Your plane was meant to crash here…"

I shake my head again, trembling all over.

"No it wasn't, and my friends weren't meant to die like that. I'm not meant to betray Delly . Stop saying that," I tell her. "I don't want to talk anymore."

Min bites her lower lip nervously.

"I only meant that you were supposed to meet my sister," Min says slowly.

Min is wrong! Surely Cai wouldn't give up anything more than she already has for me, a foreign soldier likely to die in the not too distant future despite all her efforts. I don't know how to live here, and I won't make it. Thoughts of leaving creep into my mind again, but I know I'd freeze the death. It'd be hard to leave knowing that'd be my fate, but Cai has to realize she's only delaying the inevitable . If she's blinded by affections for me then that's partly my fault. I kiss and hold her. What the hell am I doing to her? I just can't seem to help myself, and it's not some lustful foray, I love her. I truly love her. How can I do this to her?

"I'll talk to her," I tell Min, my voice unsteady.

"Good!" Min says with a cheery smile, obviously misinterpreting my emotion and my plans for the conversation.


	16. Theft

(Cai)

Peeta's had another bad day, but a different kind of bad. For two days I watched over him as he showed less interest in everything around him. He grew weaker, slower, and listless. On the third day Min and I had to help him walk, and I knew we were going to lose him if we didn't do something differently. Gao would say that losing Peeta might be for the best, that Peeta simply wasn't going to survive this winter, and that his death would all but guarantee that the rest of us would live. Even Peeta might say that, but I can't let him go. Yesterday was the fifth day, and Peeta complained of feeling cold. Since he rarely complains about anything I knew he must feel cold, but when I touched him he felt warm. Thinking he was suffering from chills I wrapped him in one of my blankets in addition to his own. He grimaced as I tucked it under his side.

Yes, Peeta, this is what starving feels like, and I have to try to stop it.

When I round the corner I tell Min my plans while she tends the fire.

"I'm going out to dig up one of the large preserve jars. Try to help Peeta drink something; there's a little soup. Maybe you can give him that and he'll get a bit to drink and eat at the same time." Min nods, her gaze dropping. She's as concerned as I am.

Digging the preserve jar out of the frozen ground is hard work, but it's the wind that challenges me most. Unfortunately, I buried this particular jar in a clearing on high ground, so there's nothing to block the wind's ferocity as it cuts through me. The shovel hits the clay pot with a familiar dull clanking sound. I reach down to push frozen chunks of soil away with my chilled fingers. Soon I'm walking home carrying the jar and dragging the shovel behind me, having attached it to my waist with a short piece of rope. The shovel bounces around loudly as it bumps against rocks, hits large sticks, and crushes dead leaves. Maybe that is why I don't hear anyone approach me.

Without warning the shovel stops moving and I cannot go any further. I look back to see what obstacle might be blocking the shovel, and as I turn the clay pot I'm holding is lifted out of my arms. Hands wrap around my eyes, obstructing my view. In my shock I scream and another hand quickly covers my mouth.

"Be quiet, Cai," a menacing voice I don't recognize tells me. "We don't want to hurt you. We only want the food."

I can only assume that a couple of my hungry neighbors have chosen to steal from me, thinking that with Gao absent I am an easy target. They may or may not know about Peeta. Regardless, I will not give up my family's food without a fight. I struggle, probably foolishly, kicking one of my attacker's legs and pushing my body hard into the person that is holding me from behind. I'm shoved to the ground, landing facedown, my head striking something hard.

"Don't tell your foreigner about this. We'd do worse to him," the voice says.

I hear the crunch of leaves as my attackers flee, and when I try to look up to see who they were my vision blurs. I feel something warm trickle down my cheek. The warmth is welcome on my wind burned skin. With a sigh I lay down my dizzy head to rest just a moment, but the moment grows too long and I feel myself falling asleep.

(Min)

I'm worried. My sister does not normally take so long to fetch anything from outdoors. I glance down at Peeta, whose chest is rising and falling evenly. He seldom sleeps so soundly. Cai tells me that in his home it is like harvest all the time for him. He has never been hungry like this. While he's clearly been suffering from the hunger, he's also been sad. At this point he's nearly shut down. I don't think he talked to Cai about the two of them yet, but if he did whatever was said only made him sadder.

I like Peeta. He's a much better friend and companion to my sister than Gao ever was, but he's not doing well. I wonder how Cai will feel if he dies. She has a difficult time with grief, not as hard a time as Mother, but a hard time none-the-less.

Peeta's probably too weak to go and look for Cai even if I did wake him, so I decide to put on my warmest clothes and venture outside myself. The cold wind stings my face, and I pull my layers of clothing more tightly around my body as soon as I'm outside. A few hundred yards away, I see a figure clumsily moving along the trees.

"Min!" A voice calls to me as it dawns on me that the staggering figure is my sister.

I run to her, and she collapses to the ground. I notice the blood immediately. Panicked, I look her over to see how she's been hurt, discovering a deep gash on her forehead.

"What happened?" I ask frantically, helping Cai to her feet. She's so cold!

"Somebody pushed me over and took the food," she says as she leans on me heavily. We try to make it back to the house with quick uneven steps.

She says nothing else. Once we're inside Cai's legs seem even wobblier, and I fear they are about to give out completely. I start to turn toward our sleeping area to lay her down, but remembering something my mother once told me I turn toward Peeta's instead. Peeta doesn't stir when I try to lower Cai down to his sleeping mat.

"No," Cai whispers, anticipating my plans.

"He's warm," I tell her, "you're much too cold. This is a good way to warm you."

Cai doesn't fight me when I strip off her clothes. I quickly pull one of father's old threadbare shirts over her head. It falls lower on her frame then her own shirts do.

"Lie down, Cai," I say, guiding her head down next to Peeta's.

"I'm dizzy," she says.

"That's why you need to lie down."

I settle Cai under the same blankets that cover Peeta. His eyes open, a bewildered expression on his face.

"Take your shirt off," I tell him.

"What?" he asks me, his blue eyes reflect his confusion when he notices Cai lying beside him, her eyes closed.

"Take your shirt off and get as close to her as you can. She's very cold, Peeta," my voice finally cracks, and I brush a tear out of the corner of my eye before it has a chance to run down my face. Peeta recoils when I touch his hand to Cai's cold fingers to help him understand.

He leans forward, sits up, and lets me help him remove his shirt. Then I quickly cover him again as he lies back down and shifts closer to Cai.

"I'd have Mother do this, Peeta, but she can't always do what I ask her to do," I explain.

"No. I want to do it. Will she be all right?" he asks, wrapping his arms around my sister.

"I hope she will be," I tell him.

Then Peeta sees the blood. He pulls his bare arm from the covers to touch the skin near the gash. Cai flinches but her eyes stay closed.

Peeta looks up at me desperately, then turns back to Cai, calling her name and shaking her too hard for my liking.

She opens her puffy eyes and stares at him causing him to stop shaking her.

"What happened?" he asks in stunned concern.

Cai doesn't answer, instead burying her face between his shoulder and jaw. Good, it'll be warm there.

"Someone hurt her and took the food she was carrying," I tell Peeta.

His mouth drops open.

"Who?" He demands angrily.

I'm afraid for a moment that Peeta will try to find whoever attacked Cai.

"She hasn't said, but she was outside for a long time. They'd be gone by now," I tell him.

Peeta runs his hand down Cai's cheek following the trail of blood.

I touch his hand.

"Put your hand under the blanket. You are supposed to be warming my sister," I order him. "I'm worried for her."

"Don't you believe I am, Min?"

I do, of course, but he needs to be focused on helping Cai and not on whoever attacked her.

Peeta begins to rub Cai's hands with his under the blanket. Cai barely moves on her own, her eyes closed again.

"Why would they hurt her? Was this something about me?" he asks.

"Probably not. We're all just so hungry, Peeta. It makes people desperate."

/

Cai sleeps more than usual, and Peeta tries to take care of her. But he cannot help her stand or walk because that's something he sometimes needs help with also. They lie together quietly for hours, sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake, trying to keep warm as they huddle together under the blankets. I am grateful for the sound of their gentle breathing. It reassures me. I can't remember a winter quite this bad, and I'm sure Cai's injury and Peeta's bad leg add to their misery.

Peeta asks me if I've ever seen a gun and shows me the one that Gao gave him. It belonged to one of the men on the plane, he says. He tells me he wants to teach me how to use it just in case I ever need it, but I know he's just telling me in case something happens to him. He wants to be sure we don't forget we have the gun.

Someone comes to the door a few days after Cai was attacked and yells to be let inside. He's one of the landlord's servants, but I'm not sure whether to trust him. I help Peeta to his feet and lead him to a place where he can hold onto the wall near the door after stalling the servant. Then I put the gun in his hand. He nods approvingly as I go to open the door.

The landlord's servant walks into the house and glances around disapprovingly. He looks Peeta up and down, but doesn't appear to be aware that Peeta's hiding the gun.

"You should have told me there was illness in the house," he says.

"Nobody is ill," I snap. "Just hungry and weak."

"Hmmm. Well, my master sent me to fetch the American," he says.

"Why?" I ask.

"He says he needs him to read some papers in English."

I laugh a bit. I'm not required to respect this man more than any other man, and his suggestion that Peeta should go with him to the landlord's house is comical.

"He can't walk that far," I tell the servant, stepping forward in an attempt to back him out of the door. "He can barely stand."

The servant looks at Peeta again, turning his head curiously.

"Where's Cai?" He asks.

"She's worse than he is," I tell him, which isn't entirely true, but I want the servant to understand that one of our own is near death also in case he sees Peeta as a complete outsider.

Peeta slips down the wall a bit, and I can't tell if he does it to emphasize the point or because he can't help it.

The servant blinks a few times before turning his attention to me.

"I didn't know this winter had been so hard for you," he says. "My master says he will pay the American to read the papers."

"We want to be paid in food," Peeta says from behind me. "In advance."

The servant stares at Peeta for a moment, then shifts his eyes to me as if to ask what I think.

"Peeta is the only one who can read English, and if the landlord wants to use that ability then helping Peeta and this household stay alive is important."

/

Peeta offers Cai some of the food the Landlord's servant brought as soon as I've cooked it, even before he eats any. Her eyes widen with surprise when she sees it since she knows that it's nothing that she put away for winter. Peeta smiles at her shyly and pushes a set of chopsticks into her fingers. When she seems too uncoordinated to finish on her own he helps her, scooping the rice up on the chopsticks with his less skilled hands and catching some of the other morsels which include a few pieces of meat. When she's finished eating I see Cai reach for him. She tries to press her lips against his, but he doesn't allow it. Instead he just smiles again, a pained smile. Then he tells her she needs to lie down.

Still, Cai's resting on Peeta's sleeping mat, and he's caring for her more often than I am. Only late in the evening does he help her stagger over to her mat beside me. It is the first night since Cai was injured, that he has done that. They usually just fall asleep beside one another for the night. Tonight, as Cai lies down, I can feel the tension of their parting. Cai grasps Peeta's hands, and he looks at her gently and swallows hard. His soft voice sounds unsteady when he talks to her.

Cai would say, "You don't know anything about this, little sister," if I told her what I thought of her and Peeta, but anyone can see that they have to try to keep themselves apart. Anyone can see that it's not working.

Tomorrow the landlord's servant is going to bring a cart to take Peeta to his master's house to read the papers.


End file.
